


To This Tree From Which I Came

by Celestial_Sphere



Category: Akatsuki no Yona | Yona of the Dawn
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-01
Updated: 2019-05-18
Packaged: 2019-05-31 13:36:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 37,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15120524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Celestial_Sphere/pseuds/Celestial_Sphere
Summary: Pain isolated me. Experience made me wary. I never dreamt of the day I might find any consolation from the universe for being treated the way I had. Especially not when it came from someone who had seemingly been blessed by the same sky that tormented me. But Fate has a strange way of connecting those who may have spent their entire lives living worlds apart. To show themselves reflected in those they never could have imagined they would ever share a common thread with. This is our story finding a small light in the face of overwhelming darkness. This is a recounting of how my fate tangled with the first and only White Dragon Warrior I'd ever meet and the last White Dragon Warrior this world would ever know.Yojeong, a young woman with a troubled past, was taken in by Hakuryuu Village in the span of time after Yona recruited Kija to join her on her quest. Upon his return to his village following the end of their journeys, the two begin to unknowingly embark on a new journey together. One of self-discovery and healing that makes the trauma behind each of their poignant scars spring back to life. One that pits tradition against truth, turns friend into foe, and allows a beautiful love to bloom in the wake of tragedy.





	1. Meeting & Mistakes

**Author's Note:**

> *crawls out from under a rock* I have not posted anything on this site in such a long thing. But here I am again, ready to go with another story for you all! 
> 
> A little background on how this story came to be: After reading some theories based on someone's analysis of how they believe ANY would end (ie would Yona regain the throne and become queen or what else would possibly happen to her and the HHB at the story's ending). It got me thinking to what an alternative to her not taking back the crown would be like and where everyone would end up. All in all, I have my own head-canons as to where this leads each of the bunch now that their quests are over and tragically, most are left to deal most likely with spending whatever short amount of time is of their lives as apparently the last generation of dragon warriors. I started thinking that Kija would most likely feel a strong inclination to return to his village like he promised his grandmother in the series, and this silly little story was a happy accident about wanting to give him a happy ending in these seemingly last days of his. 
> 
> And with that being said, please enjoy!

          I bow to the mushroom placed majestically upon a tree stump decaying nearby.

         “How do you do? I have heard much about you, your…” I stand to my full height and pace nervously as the greeting still hangs unfinished in the air. “Wait, what exactly is his title? Your holiness? Your mightiness? Your highness? Your dragon-iness? No. That can’t be right. Then what?” I throw my hands towards the canopy of tall trees and shake them in exasperation. “Honestly.” I slump over and feel the weight of my despondency. “Who am I even fooling, pretending that I could speak a single word in the company of this man? This whole ordeal is far too complicated to be taken easily. Why couldn’t he have just stayed away forever?”

         With a frustrated grumble muttered under my breath, I snatch the mushroom from the stump and place it atop the mound of other forest goods I’ve gathered today so I can be on my way. There’s a heaviness to my steps. I don’t dread returning to the village. That secluded paradise was all that motivated me these days, after all. It was simply the fact that I did not know what awaited me when I did return that set me on edge. Not after the news that had spread like wildfire in this isolated place of legend far from the outside world.

         He was the reason this village remained delightfully detached from any other region of Kouka: the White Dragon. The fabled warrior of old whose powers had been reincarnated time and time again with every new generation that bore his blood. And this very last reincarnation, the one whom all the villagers had spoken nothing but praise of from the moment I had come into their midst, had unexpectedly returned home. A sight all of the villagers prayed to see occur after he’d departed many years ago to aid the recently abdicated royal who had unknowingly also been the reincarnation of the mystical Red Dragon of legend, Princess Yona.

         It was hard. Not being afraid of this mysterious man after knowing all that I did. He was a warrior, through and through, whose dragon-wrought arm could easily destroy ten men with one fell swoop. His power must have been put to good use in the time he had spent in the princess’ company as she traversed across Kouka to rid what festering evils. A journey she had undertaken just as had been foretold in legend that I had only come to be knowledgeable of since arriving in this village, as of many things. Such power terrified me. I knew the destruction one normal human man could pose on another. So for someone to hold the strength of so many in one body truly curdled the blood in my veins simply at the thought.

         Still, I try to believe him to be more than his powers. The villagers had always spoken about what a kind and courteous man he had been in the twenty-one years he had lived among them. And Grandmother, who I loved most of all, cherished him deeply and said he was the kind of man one scarcely found- even disregarding his heaven-granted qualities- on this planet.

         And with the terrible goodbye we’d been forced to make with her in the time he’d been away, I truly hoped that such a thing could still be said of him.

         I dawdle between the varying mountain paths and thickening groves of trees until the dwindling light beckons me homeward. There’s a strange sort of energy in the air today. As if the boughs were quivering gently, barely containing their anticipation for what was yet to come. Nature itself seemed to be holding in a collectively held breath. It knew, as it always had, of the momentous occasions yet to be held in its sacred groves.

         Sure enough, the entire village is in utter chaos when I arrive. The air is thick with conversation not at all held at a polite volume that melds and muddles so nothing is entirely comprehensible despite my great propensity to listen. There is only one thing I can make out with certainty, and it is what I dreamed yet dreaded all at once: the great White Dragon, as he promised, had finally come home.

         Afraid of the commotion and confusion of being in the midst of one stranger, let alone many if he had not returned alone, I discreetly deposit my foraging at the front of the small hut I was sharing with Hei-Ran and hurry inside. Knowing that she may attempt to coax me out if she saw me unoccupied, I stumble with haste into my small room, lock the door, and sit with my back pressed against the wall trying to distract myself from worrying about what might be going on in the main part of the village not far in the distance.

         But all I can see are visions of this silver-haired warrior parading around the village gloating to everyone in earshot about the heroic tales he’d come to gather in his time away. Women would swoon. Men would cajole him for more details. All in all, he’d quickly assimilate back into this place he called home. A place where I, a complete stranger to him, now also resided. My paranoia of him learning of my addition here sends me fussing over my long ebony locks that took on a strange bluish hue when the light hit it. In this place, I’d always be a foreigner. I just hoped with the return of this powerful man that I’d still be allowed to linger here.

_He’ll want to know my story._ I huddle into a tight ball as the dreadful doom of such a tale weighs heavily upon me in those moments. _But I… I won’t ever speak of it. Not to him nor to anyone. So no matter how much he commands me, no matter what kind of force he might use to coerce me, I’ll stay as silent as I always have. My tale is my own. The only one who gets to decide to whom it is told is me._

         Hei-Ran knocks politely some time later into the evening, and I open the door only a fraction to reassure myself that it’s only her who’s come calling. She lays the tray of warm food politely down on the ground before gracefully settling herself on the other side of it. In all these years that we’d been close friends, I couldn’t help but grow increasingly envious at how beautiful she’d become. And all the better for her. As the woman Grandmother had hand-chosen to be her predecessor, and therefore also her favored choice to be the White Dragon’s wife, she deserved every advantageous gift nature could give to her. Not that she was lacking any beside beauty. Kind and gentle-spoken, yet firm and unwavering from withholding tradition, she’d make a fine wife to any man. Though in my firm belief not just any man would do.

         “So he really is back.” I say to her some time after I’ve begun to nibble scarcely at the meal before me. “This White Dragon of yours.”

         I don’t have to look up to know that her pale cheeks are blooming rogue. “He’s not _my_ White Dragon, Yojeong.” She says hastily, as if knowing clearly well that he may as well be. “But yes, he’s returned. And praise to our ancestors that he’s well and in good health. For we’ve all worried incessantly about him since his departure all those years ago.”

         A half-hearted hum of agreement filters out of my pursed lips. Indeed. Since the day I’d been taken in by this village almost three years ago, I’d heard nothing but ceaseless prayers and praise for this mysteriously mystic warrior from anyone and everyone who had breath. Which, in all honesty, made me more of wary him than I perhaps might have been had they been more selective with what they chose to say on his behalf.

         “You will have to meet him, sooner or later.” I know Hei-Ran hates to remind me as she gathers up the half-eaten meal I’ve ceased to eat in recent minutes. “So? Why don’t we just go sometime tomorrow morning to get it over with? Wouldn’t it set your mind at ease to get this initial meeting done and accounted for?”

         My stomach churns, and I’m uncontrollably panicked. Me, meet him. Him, meet me. Judge me. Sneer at me, even. Or worse: banish me from this village of his without thinking twice about it.

         Then where in the world would I go? Because there was nothing left for me in the world outside of this village. Banished and alone, there truly would be no redeeming act of Fate that could set my life back on course if he did.

         It was the only thing I had a clear consciousness on. The outside world would destroy me. It had tried once and almost succeeded.

         And I would never, ever, give it the chance to do so again.

         Suddenly self-conscious of my scars, I curl my mangled hand behind me and swallow the terrible lump in my throat. “You’ll be there, won’t you? The entire time?”

         “Of course I will.” Her gentle reassurance calms me, though only for a few moments after hearing it. “Let me just take these things back and we’ll get ready for bed. Do you want to sleep with me tonight?”

         I nod, knowing just as clearly as she did that the night terrors were worst when I felt panicked or out of sorts. Which, in this situation, I unfortunately felt both with vigor. “Please.”

         “Go ahead and get your things while I’m away. I’ll brush all your beautiful hair out as soon as I’m back.” She comes and smooths a hand over the top of my head in a motherly sort of manner. “Then maybe the exhaustion of today will catch up with both of us and we’ll be fast asleep until morning, hm?”

         For both of our sakes, I really hoped so.

 ***

         “Hold still. Your ribbon’s a little crooked.” Hei-Ran dips over and fiddles with the silver-hued ribbon Grandmother had given me about almost two years ago. I’d felt so out of place in this village swarming with people whose mark of belonging here resided clearly in those metallic locks; the simple cloth had been her way of rectifying it and reassuring me that my place was here among them all despite any of our physical differences. “There.” She lifts my chin and gives me a gentle smile. “You look lovely, Yojeong.”

         I force myself to smile at her, though I know it looks as strained as it feels. She was the lovely one, not me. Her long silver mane was pulled into an elegant sort of up-do with a few decorative beaded pins in a variety of colors holding it in place, making her look as regal as any noble lady I’m sure the White Dragon had seen during his journeys. And the colorful gown she sported today really brought out the crystalline shade of sapphire her eyes naturally gleamed with. All in all, when compared to me in my humble two-toned gown, my ridiculously long hair painfully suspended behind a simple ribbon, and all my other generic features taken into consideration, she shone brightly without competition.      

         “Now don’t worry.” She’d said this sentence at least a dozen times since we had awakened this morning a little later than usual thanks to my terrible terrors that had ravaged any sleep we both might have gotten last night. I wondered if she was constantly just saying it in an attempt to relieve the fear she saw frozen on my features or had now just worried herself to the point that the reassurance went both ways. “Kija is a very nice man. I’m sure he’ll just politely say hello, ask you how you are, and send us on our way. Now that doesn’t sound too bad, does it? I’m sure it’ll be over before we know it. Then you can go frolicking through the forest and have some peace of mind that this initial meeting between you has finally passed.”

         In all honesty, I wished we could just bypass this whole terrible typhoon of terror and let this warrior do his business while I did my own without forcing us to coexist simply for the sake of posterity. Surely this man would want nothing to do with me. No; I would ensure that would be the case. For while he might very well be the man Hei-Ran would be wed to, or this high and mighty White Dragon incarnate for that matter, I would not allow him a foothold into my personal comings and goings for all of the palace’s treasures.

         Sensing that it was best not to let me linger in my own thoughts for too long, the woman beside me offers a polite knock to the shut edifice before us. My stomach turns over on itself several times the moment a man’s voice bids us to enter. This was really happening. This renown warrior with powers of old would see me- me, this pathetic excuse for a woman with my past pains branded over ever centimeter of skin my body came in- and judge me with a simple glance. It was all too much. Too quick. I-I needed air.

         Hei-Ran sees my hysteria rising and clamps a hand around my wrist and drags me into the room behind her. I stumble with every step, wishing with every fiber of my being that this wasn’t happening while knowing that with every moment that passed, he and I were now one step closer to one another than we had been before. A man. Powerful. Imposing. Broad. Angry. The words slosh together in an ocean of panic that rose perpetually with every breath I choked in and out.

         “Good morning, Lord Kija.” The woman before me stops and dips down into a tiny bow. In doing so, she releases me, and I cling both of my hands into the back of her gown while hiding myself completely in her shadow. “I hope you’ve had a pleasant night of rest. Was everything to your satisfaction? If not, please let me know. We wish for you to have only the most comfortable of stays while you are back home.”

         There’s an airy chuckle. One that sounds… great constellations, I hated to say it, but lacking that masculine guffaw I immediately assumed it would have. “You are too kind, Hei-Ran. Everything has gone above my expectations. You all have always taken such great care of me. I very much doubt that it could ever be otherwise.”

         Those gently polite compliments of his are met by a short giggle from my companion. “It warms my heart to hear you say that, my lord. We gather our happiness and strength from you. So long as you are well, so are we.”

         “Yes.” There’s an edge of hesitation- as if he is wary to accept the lofty praise I’m sure he had heard a thousand times over since being born with the bloodline he had inherited. “It seems you’ve brought a guest with you today. Would you introduce us please? I would very much like to meet this mysterious villager I’ve yet to be acquainted with.”

         “Oh, but of course.” Hei-Ran steps aside now, and there I am, bunched over like some sort of cripple, frozen in place. “Lord KiJa, this is Yojeong. She’s taken residence here since you’ve went on your journey with Princess Yona and the other dragon-born. Yojeong,” She swats me softly with the dangling sleeve of her gown and nudges her head in the direction of the man in our midst when she sees my eyes frantically sweep up to look at her. “Say hello.”

         I nervously glance over at the man, fearing the worst, and-

         A laugh of hysterical disbelief erupts out of me as the vision of this mysterious man registers.

         Him? This wispy, almost effeminate looking creature- one with delicate features who could instantaneously be considered beautiful with his enlarged eyes and soft ivory features before he could be considered anything else- was the fated warrior who housed the power of the white dragon within one of his arms? _He_ was a great warrior? Him?

         Surely not!

         It’s only when I look down to see one of his hands uncannily clad with serpentine scales that I realize that he truly is everything that the villagers had said that he was.

         Oh no.

         The realization of what I’d done hits me as he just stares owl-eyed at me, unblinking.

         I… I had just laughed at the White Dragon Warrior. Laughed right at him- straight to his face. A loud, mocking laugh that could never be erased nor forgotten for that matter.

         Humiliated, I turn tail and bolt before another second can pass.

         The village is a blur as I dash madly along. My lungs burn. So do the muscles in my calves. But I don’t stop. Not until the modest houses and structures fade away and I’m bent over, huffing for air, in the center in the woods beyond.

         I berate myself to no end. Stupid, stupid woman. How could you look upon a man- _that_ man, for the sake of all that’s holy!- and laugh, laugh mind you, straight to his face like some sort of loon? Oh great gods above. Only they knew what kind of excuses Hei-Ran must have spun to smooth over the whole awkward predicament I’d left her in when I fled like life itself depended upon my hasty departure.

         The shame of those quick-fired actions catches up with me. My mind won’t do anything but make recount all the stupid things I done. I dip down, eyes burning with mortified tears, and feel like the fool I’d surely shown myself to be in those brief moments standing before the White Dragon warrior.

         “You’re such a freak of nature.” I mutter scathingly while lowering my head to rest against my thighs. “Father was right. The world would have done itself a right by erasing me from its surface. All I do is bring shame everywhere I go. That's why no one really cares for me. Why I shouldn’t ever let myself believe that anyone could ever really care for me.”

         That misery had been my constant companion for so long. Too long. It was the reason I always stayed silent. Even when the pain welled up within me and the words lunged at my throat, begging for release, I willed myself to keep silent. To this day, no soul in the village knew a single personal detail about me. It was the reason they came to call me “Yojeong”- an umbrella term for something fairy in origin- because of the way I’d been spirited up to this village as if suddenly appearing from another world. Which in some part was true. I had left behind one world when I entered into this place. A blood-stained place I might have left physically that unfortunately would always remain alive inside of me for as long as I took breath.

         Resolve replaces my self-loathing given time. Moping would change nothing. It had done nothing in the past when I chose to expend my energy on it and would do absolutely no different now. As mortifying as it would be, as taxing as it might be to someone with as flighty a disposition as I had, I’d have to apologize to the warrior for laughing in his face and hope there would be no animosity between us because of it.

         Hei-Ran’s nothing sort of glowing when I finally locate her within the village and meekly mumble that I’d like to be given the chance to apologize to the man I’d unknowingly mocked if and when it was opportune. For I dreaded that as much as I wished to make amends, there may not be a chance to do so.

         “Oh, but of course. We’ll go tonight after we’ve finished our tasks since he is preoccupied right now with some other matters.” She takes both of my hands into her own and gives them a large squeeze. “I am so very proud of you, Yojeong, for coming to such a decision yourself. I know how much courage it must have taken to reach that consensus.”

         Warmed by her praise and quieted by my own conscious on the matter, I change out of my nice gown into something more homespun and trek up the steeply inclining paths to the area where the animals stocked to feed the villagers are housed. The small boar and mountain-sturdy chicken foraged freely up in these fragrant fields of various plant life during the day, apparently making them all the more succulent for consumption. I wouldn’t know personally. I had given up eating meat many years ago; the simple fact that something else’s blood was having to be shed to ensure the continuation of my own seemed derisively cruel.

         After gathering the eggs and cleaning up the area where the chickens were housed for the evening, I head back down to the village to help with whatever else might need extra hands to complete. The women meet me with warm welcomes and even warmer smiles, and I return it all with a gentle smile to each and every one of them. Children attempt to coax me into playing a game, tugging at one sleeve or at the side of my gown almost incessantly, and with a small comment of apology, I send them all flying off with the wind yet again. The only ones who do not openly approach me are the men. Most just respectfully give me a wide berth as I move along and offer only a small nod or fleeting smile if my attention is somehow drawn in their direction.

         With no additional work needing to be completed, I return back home and wait for Hei-Ran to hurry along herself. She returns a short time later and we set off through the village towards the grand structure every reincarnation of the White Dragon warrior had resided in since this place’s creation many centuries ago. There’s no need for pomp on this meeting, apparently, as I glance down at my neutral-toned gown that looked more like a burlap sack than anything else. I was wondering why the meeting this morning had been any different.

         “Ah, Lord Kija. Hello.” Hei-Ran says as if caught off-guard not long after we’ve entered into the massive structure. I hastily dip my chin at the realization that he’s standing not far in the distance from us and will myself not to move another muscle. “I hope we aren’t coming at an inopportune moment.”

         “Oh, it’s no inconvenience on my behalf.” The reassuring warmth gushes from his statement uttered in response. “I had been invited to dine with some of the villagers this evening, so I was just heading out to meet them. You ladies would be more than welcome to join us if you’d like.”

         “While I must thank you for your gracious hospitality to include us, my lord, we’ve only come to occupy a few moments of your time this evening.” I could have hugged Hei-Ran for excusing us both as smoothly as she did had the man not been in our midst. “Yojeong, well…” She chuckles politely into one of her hands. “I suppose I should let her speak on her own behalf from this moment forth.”

         Shakily, I lift my gaze to meet that of the warrior’s. His blue eyes- odd. How even among these villagers with such great semblances to one another, there was still such a diversity of hues to each individual’s hair and eyes. For this man’s set of blue orbs held the color of a cloudless sky in its endlessly azure marvel- widen at the sudden eye contact between us. Every nerve within me tells me to run, but I hold tight, knowing that running now would impossibly complicate everything further than it already was.

         “Sorry.” I wheeze the one word out. His gaze softens as he processes my half-formed apology. I avert my own and curl my shaking hands into the bodice of my gown. “For laughing. At you. I didn’t… I didn’t mean to do it. I’m so sorry.”

         I hold my breath and wait for the weight of his judgment.

         “That’s quite alright.” I relax, though only slightly. It was best not to take things at face value despite how genuine they appeared. It was a terrible lesson I had learned several times over with my father. “I didn’t take any offense from it. Thank you for coming to apologize, Yojeong. I hope that you and I can learn to be on friendly terms with one another. For Hei-Ran’s sake. And Granny’s as well.”

         I clutch my hands tighter as the old woman’s face fills my mind. The weight of her loss feels fresh in those moments. She had loved me so much. She had loved him too, more than I knew that I could comprehend in my limited understanding. And if it would set her soul well at ease up in the heavens to see us both interacting amiably, I would do my very best to honor her legacy by doing that at least.

         He gets his answer from me in the form of a slow nod.

         “We’ll not impose on you any further.” Hei-Ran’s cheerful tone reassures me that she’s delighted to see me pushing myself outside of my comfort zone. “Good evening, KiJa.”

         “Good evening, Hei-Ran. Yojeong.” His own chipper farewell reminds me yet again that I’ve acted correctly. “Until we meet next.”


	2. Forgive; Never Forget

Two nights later, I’m dressed in my finery yet again and seated between two elderly women as the whole village partook in a massive feast to formally honor Ki-ja’s return. No expense has been spared. Food and drink flows freely for all to enjoy until they had gotten their fill of both. The feast spans magnificently from a roast boar someone had been sent up into the mountains to prepare, soup made from young chicken and mountain herbs, charred river fish from the streams cutting in on either side of the village, colorful rice ranging in a variety of hues from yellow to blue to pink that had been stained naturally from ingredients growing all around us, and sautéed mushrooms in a variety of sauces.

“Such a celebration.” One of the women nearby sighs in contentment as the night air is saturated with noise from conversation, increasingly drunken goads from one man to another, and the subtle sound of some sort of music lulling behind it all. I attempt to block it all out, weary of all the noise and commotion that I wanted nothing more than to sink away into the shadows with every second that passed. “One that is absolutely fitting for the return of our splendid young master in all of his triumph.”

The grandmother to my left scoops a portion of the yellow stained rice onto my platter before turning to nod at the other. Knowing that arguing was futile, I take a small spoonful and chew in a delicate silence as their conversation carried on. “Indeed. He has done the ancestors well by honoring his pact to the white dragon in such a manner. And now he may bathe in all the acclaim such a thing reaps.”

“Hm. Yes, you are absolutely right my dear. As he deserves. And with the battles over and the future of Kouka’s fate sealed securely for some time, I very much hope that he will do as his forefathers did before him and take a wife soon.”

“How right you are. Every good man needs a wife. And none more deserving than our great young master himself.” The other agrees with some enthusiasm. “And all of our young women are more than willing to appease him by filling such a role. Though I think Hei-Ran, who has been the favorite of his grandmother- heavens rest her soul- must rightfully be given the honor if he finds no qualms with it.”

The other laughs mildly at the statement. I attempt not to frown as I scan the area where my only true friend in this place sat obediently behind the smiling White Dragon Warrior who listened to the multitude of women who sat in close proximity to him, trying to fuss over him as well all at once. “Qualms? My dear, what man could ever have any qualms with Hei-Ran? She is but twenty- young, beautiful, poised, and practical. Only a fool would pass up such a blessing from the gods. And you and I are no fool to think that in returning here, returning now, that the young master intends to make good on marrying before long.”

“Let us pray that it will be the case. For we will see much happiness from his union with another.” I stand abruptly to my feet, suddenly sick to my stomach. The older woman to my left clutches a hand over her heart and looks up at me with widened eyes. “Goodness, Yojeong. You startled me. Are you alright? Is something the matter?”

I just dip in my head in apology and run for home.

There’s a terrible ache in my chest that just won’t dissipate. I wanted to be happy for Hei-Ran. Honestly and truly, I wanted my best friend to be happy in every manner that she could be. But I was afraid to lose her- afraid to watch this frail world I’d built up all around me crumble to nothingness with her removal. My life in the village wouldn’t be the same. I’d have no one to really connect with. No one to shed an extra ounce of patience on me.

Because unlike her, I’d never get married. I’d never trust a man enough to get close enough to touch my hand. How could I ever expect one to touch my heart, then? Surely there was a semblance of goodness in many of the men who resided in this village. But there had been a semblance of goodness in my father too, all those years ago, and looked what had become of him. Look what had become of me too because of it.

I don’t really manage any sleep that night. Hei-Ran returns to see me laying on my small straw mattress with my candle blown out and quietly shuts the door to my room as gently as she had opened it. I wonder if she saw me run off during the celebration earlier on. No; I try not to feel hurt by the lack of attention she must have had on my behalf. Happily preoccupied with tending to Ki-Ja, she must have had all her energy and affection directed towards him.

Weary of the battle of coming to grips with the changes coming my way, I dress in the darkness and make my way out to the outskirts of the village as dawn begins to break. Talking to Grandmother had always calmed me. Even now, after she had passed, I still came and prayed over her grave whenever I needed to get my thoughts in order. Life was not the same without her. Every day I found myself missing her just as dearly as I had the first day she ceased to take breath on her deathbed, if not more.

Unfortunately, there is someone already at Grandmother’s grave when I arrive. I stumble backwards after I see Ki-Ja’s reverently bent form before the earthen mound where she had been laid to rest. I’m equal parts perplexed and panicked. What was he doing here at such an early hour of the morning? Well, praying, obviously, but to what end?

It’s only when he straightens his posture and wipes away the accumulating moisture littering his cheeks that I feel a strong surge of sympathy. He’d been crying. Why? What weighed so heavily upon his mind that caused those tears to swell?

He notices me a few moments later when he turns to take in his surroundings. There’s a moment of recoil on both of our behalves for the sudden awareness of each other’s presences. I expect him to bark at me to state my business; an apology is held tightly behind my tightly pressed lips, ready to be spewed the moment I got any whiff of displeasure on his part. Blasted legs! If only you would work. I’d run straight back home and save us both the humiliation of prolonging this awkward scenario.

“Ah, Yojeong.” But then he smiles, so much like Grandmother herself, and I do not feel as fearful as I had a half-second ago. “Good morning. What brings you here?”

Remembering my manners, I dip my head slightly in greeting. I fumble to gesture in the direction of the grave he is seated beside before hurriedly clutching my hands behind my back. The sudden mangled appearance of my right hand makes me suddenly hyper-aware of all my bodily-borne trauma. Best to keep them discreetly out of sight to not let any unwarranted curiosity stem as this meeting between us continued.

“Oh, you’ve come to pray over Granny’s grave yourself. Here.” He takes off his cloak and places it politely down a few feet to his left. “Come join me if you’d like. I’ll be finished soon enough.”

Wary to be in such close proximity to him, I nervously skirt several feet behind him and sit on the farthest edge of his cloak. There was no way he could reach me from here within his arm span. I was safe- well, as safe as I could be given the scenario. And if he so much as moved a centimeter in my direction, I’d bolt. No ifs, ands, or buts about it.

I’m too paranoid about his presence to attempt a single word in prayer. Frustration flares to anger, though it’s not exactly clear what I’m angry about. Was it the fact that a man’s co-existing in such close proximity to me continuously proved to be such a debilitating scenario? Or perhaps the uncertainty I felt about this man in particular, who appeared to be one thing before my eyes yet happened to be almost someone else entirely in all the words spoken about him? Or was it simply towards myself and my inability to move forward, after all this time, and allow myself to finally be unshackled from the hell that imprisoned my soul pleading to be set free?

“I was so worried to leave the village all those years ago.” I lower my tightly clutched hands meant to be folded for prayer and turn my chin ever so slightly as Ki-Ja smiles sadly at Grandmother’s gravestone. “While it was in part that I’d never fended for myself nor left the perimeter of the village before, I dreaded the burden that would be placed on Granny’s shoulders in order to cope with my loss. I told her in those last moments of farewell that I feared for her health. And I was right. Leaving this village in her care had been the death of her.”

The tears spring to my eyes, brimming with a burning heat I knew I deserved. It wasn’t so much that I was touched by his words that I wished to weep. Her death hadn’t been in part from his actions. It had been from mine. This guilt that swelled within me prodded me from all sides now, reminding me without cease of my part in the older woman’s sudden passing from this world.

For had I not run off into the woods alone and come back wracked with a fever deep into the autumn season two years ago, she might still be alive. But all because of me- all because of my bodily trauma and my inability to let anyone but her near at that time- she might not have succumbed to such a sickness herself and passed when her elderly body could not bear the strain of such a thing. She might very well be alive today to welcome her grandson home- the grandson she had waited so patiently to see one last time and never did.

“I-I’m sorry.” I lament while dipping my head towards the ground as the weight of my guilt consumes me. “I’m so sorry.”

Ki-ja makes a small sound of concern but thankfully does not attempt anything else for many long, almost unending moments following. “There’s nothing to apologize for, Yojeong. Granny’s passing was not your doing. Her time to return to the heavens had come. It is just as simple as that.”

“But… but-” I cannot form the words that would proclaim my shameful involvement in her hastened heralding.

“I know very well that you had been ill, and that you blame her own illness because of her tending to you.” He murmurs softly. My tears flow strong, and I choke back a sob of defeat. So he knew. All this time, he knew of my sin and withheld his judgment. How? How could he bear the mere sight of me or even accept such a thing as calmly as he did? Didn’t he see as well as I did- as well as anyone in this village did- of my terrible burden of blame? “But her death is not on your hands, Yojeong. Not in the slightest. So please do not believe yourself to be in any manner the cause of her death. She would not wish you to be left with carrying the blame for such a matter. Her loss was a terrible blow enough to you; I can see how deeply you loved her. And I have no doubt of how deeply she must have loved you in return.”

I weep unendingly. No judgment. No anger. No curses. It was more than I could have imagined. More than I could comprehend. No. Such a thing could not be possible. Everything was my fault. Everything. And yet… I knew that he did not believe so. At least, not on this account. Oh gods, could it really be true? Could such a thing truly be understood in such a manner where no blame fell on me?

My tears quiet after some time. Heavens know I had cried enough to fill a lake in all the time I’d spent lamenting over my sins and failures. And with so much to be held accountable for- so many wrongs to be weighed and carried forever- my soul wept unendingly, so at times, so must I.

“I loved her.” I curl a hand over my slow-beating heart and hang my head low. “More than I loved any other person before. She was the most amazing woman.”

“Yes.” Ki-ja’s softly spoken concurrence reassures me of the genuineness of his response. “She really was.”

We sit in silence for some time, pensively withdrawn in our own minds without much awareness of one another. Oddly, I find that I’m calm in my reflection. Calm with myself too. It felt as if the turbulent seas of violent memories, emotions, and paranoia had gently ebbed themselves into silence for the time being.

And after drowning in its depths for as long as I had, the unexpected relief becomes an unbelievable blessing in and of itself within those brief moments that it exists.

Knowing that I could no longer do what I came here to do, I slowly lift myself to my feet. Ki-ja’s turned to watch me now, his gaze light but curious, and I find myself wary of the look, though not frightened of it. In these moments, what thoughts did he make of me? I did not know. I could not. Which seemed as much a blessing as it did a curse.

Dipping back down, I gather his cloak into my hands and gently swat away the glistening tendrils of dust and dirt that have fallen onto its white exterior. I suppose the action signals to him that I’m departing, for he stands to his own feet a polite distance away as I nitpick over the cloak’s appearance simply out of paranoia. And once it is as clean as I can humanly manage, I dip my head and extend it hastily back to him.

“Thank you, Yojeong.” I only straighten once he’s cautiously taken the article of clothing into his hold instead. “Are you heading back to the village now?”

I curl my hands into tight fists and dangle them from my sides. Anxiety for the reason behind him asking such a simple question consumes me, and I debate just striding off without giving him any clarity about my intentions. But knowing it was wrong and that I should attempt a little civility when the situation required it, I muster the courage to nod.

“Be careful on your way then.” I’m almost flabbergasted that he sends me off as warmly as he did. There was no invitation for him to join me. No polite decorum to escort me or demand to be in my presence just for the sake of my safety which in such a place was never truly an issue. “Until we meet next.”

I give him another hastily formed nod before skittering backwards and turning towards the path that led back to the village. Intrigued and a little perplexed that he had been so simple and soft with me, I can’t help but turn to give him a quick glance over my shoulder once I’ve made it a few meters away. He’s already been watching me, I realize with a churning stomach, though as to what aim I couldn’t tell you. But when he sees I’ve turned to look at him too, he tilts his head to one side, smiling, and lifts a hand in a second sort of farewell from the one he’s already uttered.

Mortified to have been seen in such a curious manner, I dip politely before jogging off so nothing else could happen.

 


	3. Wounds on the Wounded

Unsure of what to think, I’m slightly on edge about anything and everything to do with Ki-Ja. Which, in a village as small as this one that practically revolved around the living legend he embodied, was a near impossible feat. And while living with the woman who was sure to be his wife in nearer times than I liked to admit myself, any chance for escape on a topic involving him dissipated like mist into the air.

I begin to grow increasingly frustrated when my attention seems to constantly center around him as I go about my work or linger about in the village doing other things. On the brief and varied occasion that he and I seemed to be in a space where some sort of interaction was necessary, his simple choice to smile or lift a hand in greeting makes me dip my head without much thought as I go about my day. He seemed to understand as well as any other man in this place that approaching me wasn’t an acceptable or accessible option. And I was thankful for that; more than he probably knew.

The real root of my aggravation stems from the shifting attitude of any single woman within the village. Their incessant chatter of wooing this man when there were a few dozen respectable ones within their reach was mind-boggling. It seemed as if no leap were too great to take, no action too lofty, no underhanded motive left unexplored. Clambering to reach the pedestal they’d all made the position of the White Dragon’s wife into, they constantly tried to outdo one another in every manner possible to garner this man’s affection every day since his return.

Fed up with the pure mockery of match-making the entire village seemed to have thrown themselves into, I venture into the woods beyond with no intention of returning until later that evening when hunger and exhaustion beckoned me back. I’d taken a basket of my gowns and linens with me, using them as a manageable excuse as to why I would be gone for some time if Hei-Ran or any other half-worried soul began to wonder why I’d wander off alone. But sadly I understood that even my most precious friend was wrapped as deeply as everyone else in this maddening cycle of courting Ki-Ja to really have much concern to waste on my behalf.

White Claw Falls is beautiful in its bounty of breathtaking scenery as it stood a steep trek only about fifteen minutes north of the village. The waterfall that cascaded down in four short, roaring sections very much resembled its name sake. Rumor hailed it as a place that had been frequented by the first White Dragon warrior as his favorite place to bathe. To this day, it became an almost sacred place that was only put to use by the next reincarnation of the warrior’s bloodline or more commonly a pair soon to be wed to bless their bodies with health and fertility for their potential offspring.

Although lingering here was seemingly a little dishonorable to the sanctity this natural wonder held, it was one of the few landmarks I could think of where I could dawdle in peace without fear of being pestered by someone else’s presence. And since I meant this place no disrespect, I knew there was no shame in doing as I felt led to do. Here, it was simply I and nature coexisting as we always had: with our scars bared brazenly for each other to see.

The task of laundry always took time. And gladly willing to preoccupy myself with the menial chore, I work without qualm through the prolonged physical exertion of scrubbing, rinsing, and wringing out every article of clothing I’d toted up here alongside me. Such a thing had been a very common part of my life before coming to this remote paradise. Cleaning and cooking were a woman’s work. And when my mother passed when I was nine while trying to give birth, that workload had been placed solely on my young shoulders. But never sour, never whining, I understood that in doing so I ensured that Father, my older brother Chun, and I always had food in our bellies and clothes on our backs.

My chest grows as cold as the water sprinkled against my skin as I undress and launder the gown on me as well. I hadn’t done enough. Everything that happened to the three of us had been my fault. If I had worked harder, maybe Chun would have found a little more contentment in our humble lives as lumber-workers and stayed to take on the work load as every man in our family had done before him instead of leaving with the wind one day when he was fourteen. It broke my heart and had destroyed our father.

Because from that day forward, he drank and drank as if he could not get his fill.

I slowly submerge myself into the small pool that accumulated beneath the waterfall and bathe in a somber silence. Poor, poor Father. That addiction to alcohol had been his downfall. It led to so many terrible, tragic things: His injury that caused him to be unable to work in the same manner he had before. His own infliction of injuries to me. And the worst of them all being his own death when he drank almost without cease and his body could no longer take the strain.

 Weary of the grief and guilt I carried like a second shadow, I lay against a sun-warmed rock and will myself to think of other things while patiently waiting for my hair to dry enough to pile it atop my head and return to my laundry. Father was dead; there was no changing it as much as I regretted every decision I had made while he was still alive that might have altered the course his life so suddenly took. And while I could not deny that he had been cruel to me- oh gods so cruel. My mind, body, and soul all knew such a torment could only be second to that of hell itself- I knew that there had been reason behind it in some form or fashion.

A slow breeze passes through the trees, once regal in their verdant crowns now faded to glow with one last tinge of color as autumn’s reign triumphed on, and I feel myself full of an uncanny calm as it whispers its secrets over me. As futile as it might have been to believe such a thing, in those moments, I felt my place in the cosmic stratosphere that ebbed and waned with every passing moment in this living land. A soft voice that lingered within my soul whispers that there was a reason I existed here- existed now. My presence in this place had been fated. Though as to what purpose, only the mysterious universe that could make the wind come and go at will seemed to know.

 My contemplative silence draws my body into a content calm, drawing me close to sleep.

A peaceful lull that is shattered like glass the second a resounding set of movements comes from somewhere between the trees not far from where I lay.

My eyes fly open, but by then, it is all too late.

I see Ki-Ja, standing a couple of yards away. He is naked. Completely naked with a few very distinguishable parts of his body standing out immediately. The man stands petrified in place as he gaped at me with eyes that would most assuredly pop out of his skull if they bulged one more centimeter outwards.

It’s not until we’ve been frozen in time, staring unblinking at one another, that I realize I’m completely naked as well.

The sudden movements to hastily cover my unclothed form seem to snap Ki-Ja from whatever trance he had been left lost in as he too begins to cover his nakedness.

“I-I’m so sorry!” He says with a little more volume than necessary as I turn away on the rock, burning with shame. Oh gods. He had seen me. All of me. Every inch of skin- everything. And I… I had seen him too. The vision of his bare form burns in my mind and will not budge. My mortification swells exponentially. “Truly, Yojeong. I had no intention of imposing upon you while you bathed. Had I known you were here, I would not approach. Please forgive me. It was all an honest mistake on my behalf. I mean you no disrespect. Such a thing has no secondary motive behind it.”

I cannot speak. There are words, though none that will come out coherently if I could find my voice. All I wanted in those moments was to be struck down so I would not have to live through this infinitely embarrassing scenario.

Blasted fool! I bite down on my lip as I realize I could not make a run for it. My basket of laundry lay on the other side of the falls, far beyond where he probably stood hastily dressing himself. But oh gods. I could not stay still. To linger here a moment longer in his presence was impossible.

I attempt to launch myself off of the rock and hope to catch him off guard with my sudden movements. But the rock is too slick from my once dripping form and I feel a terrible pain latch onto my left ankle as it twists when I attempt to propel myself forward off of the slippery surface with too much force. I cry out and lay in the dirt below, cradling the throbbing area that reassured me that I had sprained it if not worse in the moments following.

“Yojeong!” I lay in a frozen panic when Ki-ja stands over me dressed in what appears to be a thin inner robe and his undergarments. A sudden memory of my father standing over me in a similar manner ensnares me, and like that time, I am paralyzed in place, unable to act regardless of what might be done to me. “Are you alright? What happened? Have you injured yourself?”

He seems to realize yet again that I am still naked and shrugs off his robe with some urgency so it is now demurely covering my form from his view. “Please excuse me for having to do this.” He mumbles while burning red. “But modesty demands it.”

 He lifts a hand to my leg now. I jerk back violently before he even touches me and he halts his approach to instead watch me tremble incessantly. In my mind, I understood that he had no intention of hurting me. But my soul, so battered and bruised from all the abuse it had taken, cowered deep within me and reminded me that I had been hurt and could always be hurt by another in every manner possible.

“It’s alright.” Ki-Ja seems to understand his imposing sort of mannerisms have caused me great anxiety and pulls away so that he is no longer bearing down on me as he had before. His blue-eyed gaze is soft- calm. Such a soothing expression reaches me, and I begin to unravel my mind from the panic that once consumed it. “I don’t want to harm you, Yojeong. I just see that you are in a great deal of pain and wish simply to deem if you require immediate medical attention. Will you let me examine your ankle? Is that alright?”

I pull the robe closer and bob a slow nod. _He just wants to ascertain the extent of your injury_. I remind myself to remain calm as he begins to extend his hands towards my ankle once again. _Don’t worry. If he wanted to harm you, he would have done so already._

A tiny cry of pain erupts from my mouth as he delicately lifts my foot. Such searing, instantaneous misery. I weep inside but do not allow myself to shed a single tear. Gods only knew how long such a thing would take to heal if it truly was broken.

Ki-Ja pauses for a moment, but once he sees that I’ve quieted he returns to his examination of my accidental injury. I in turn examine him. He is very cautious. Very gentle. How much of his strength he is restraining in these moments, I do not know. For I can see in the toned muscles of his arms and upper body that despite his more lithe build than that of most men, he is not lacking in strength. One could not expect any less from the heaven-blessed White Dragon warrior whose great power could not be surmounted by any mere mortal.

Odd, how such a power coexists as easily as it does while it remains housed within a human body. My eyes scan the length of his right forearm and hand, covered completely in opalescent scales that trace only slightly past his elbow, as it keeps my foot steady. Unlike a serpent’s exterior, the dragon scales are not cool to the touch. They are warm- much warmer in temperature than that of his other arm that cautiously traces its fingertips over my ankle and the surrounding ligaments. The balance between it and him astounds me; such a mystical, magical thing’s existence truly was awe-inspiring.

“I believe it is merely sprained.” Ki-Ja informs me of his assessment’s findings while delicately placing my foot back down to the dirt where the rest of my body lay in a calm sort of quiet. His blue eyes scan my face, and he soon gives me a look of concern. “Still, I do think it is best to return back to the village straightaway. Can you tell me where you left your clothing? I’ll bring it here to you and let you change. I-in private of course.” His cheeks redden as he adds in that last comment with stumbling speed. “I wouldn’t dare watch.”

I almost laugh in humor for his flustered features only to frown instead when I realize that there was nothing left to be modest about in this situation. We had both seen each other naked. He had been exposed to see every section of skin, every scar, every blemish or imperfection that my nineteen years of life had carried. If he watched, what of it? He had already seen it all.

My gesture towards the other side of the falls sends him standing slowly to his feet. I watch him turn, not expecting much of anything other than his hasty departure.

But when his back is revealed to me and all logic halts.

My breath catches.

My stomach churns.

Scars.

Four large scars in the shape of the falls that flowed powerfully behind me fill my vision.

Wounded? The questions begin to pour almost without end at the sight of these tragic marks he bore upon his skin. By what? Who? Surely such a thing was not human inflicted. Nor any weapon either. An animal maybe? Or… a wave of terrible nausea overtakes me as the sudden thought pops into my head. Could someone like him- another White Dragon warrior- have attacked him at some time? Why? When?

Such a thing must have been a terrible trauma. I cannot help but feel a connection to such a medal of misery worn so openly on his skin much like those that lingered upon my own. But yet, he bore it all in silence. How? The curiosity burns strong, and for the life of me, I ached to know more about this man. More about him, about his past, and this strength of his that made it seem like he had known no strife nor sorrow in all the years that he had been alive.

We’re both seated before a fire many minutes later when Ki-Ja realizes my gowns are too damp for use and that they must be dried further before we can depart. He’s brought me his outer robe to dress in for the time being- a very awkward encounter that involved him dropping the garment over me and waiting until I had put it on to take the slightly dampened inner robe he’s shielded my body with before for his own use- and does not make a comment about my dripping mass of hair pooling over it, surely making it as damp as anything else in these moments. All in all, he’s been very respectful. Very cautious and courteous. I know he respects my heavy walls and doesn’t wish to upset me.

I find my gaze becoming fixated on his back more often than not as I sit a polite distance to his right. For those scars of his were still visible even through the material of the thin robe he now donned. I cannot help but wonder how he is not self-conscious about them. For unlike him, I am acutely aware of every burn, scar, and missing piece of myself every moment of every day.

“Hm?” Ki-Ja’s contemplative look drawn deep into the fire’s crackling center is instead placed on me when I’ve stared for much longer than I realized I had been. “Oh.” There’s a quiet smile on his face. “You must be curious about my scars.”

I look away, embarrassed to have been seen through so easily. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t stare.”

“There’s no need to ask for forgiveness.” He brushes away my apology with a light chuckle. “I am not ashamed for such marks to be seen. You do me no injustice by looking. It is only natural to be curious as to why they exist.”

I look into the fire and feel myself unable to restrain my inquisitive interrogation now that he has spoken. “How… did you get such a scar?”

There’s a brief silence before he answers. “My father gave it to me when I was a child.”

 His softly spoken statement sends me reeling. His father? He too bore the burden of a physical reminder from such a man?

“Your father?” I ask, almost a little stupidly, still unable to fully comprehend the connection his wounds made with my own.

“Yes.” He looks down at the dragon arm he is slowly flexing and unflexing in his lap. “I am unsure of how much Granny or Hei-Ran has told you about the origins of our village, but as you must be aware of by now, it was established by the first carrier of the White Dragon’s blood almost a millennium ago. And with every generation born, this power has been passed onto a new heir of his legacy. However, it is not possible for two beings to carry the weight of the dragon’s blood fully at the same time. When the newest warrior is born, the previous begins to slowly but surely lose the power that had previously been granted to him. When I was born, my father understood that his time as the White Dragon was drawing to a close. And angered that he had a wasted a lifetime waiting as every generation before him had to be of use to our master yet again, he maimed me so I might bear the full weight of his agony.”

Many minutes pass in silence as I sit swallowing the full extent of the traumatic past he had lived. A tormented father who watched the world he wished to have a part in slowly slip between his fingers. His only outlet that of his child, who still had the world at his fingertips. Oh gods, how well I understood such a thing. A tragedy of torment and truth I believed no other soul I might meet would ever understand as deeply as I did.

“I know what it’s like to bear the weight of a father’s fury.” I say slowly, unsure of how much or how little to confess myself. But gods. I wanted to. I wanted to speak every word I’d held tightly within me for fear of shame or abandonment in the time since being taken in by his village to him right now. “My father… did this to me.” I gesture down to my body he had surely seen marked with discolorations from various wounds that had scarred over time and time again before cradling my four-fingered right hand close to my bosom. “He watched his life, his happiness, his future slip away from his hold. All he was left with was me. I could not do enough to ease his suffering. No.” I shake my head slowly. “Watching me live was his suffering.”

Ki-Ja does not say anything for some time either. Like me, I assumed he was attempting to process the grave information I’d offered so easily. But I am not afraid of his judgment. Not in the slightest. For if anyone stood on equal grounds to judge me, it was him.

“Do you mind if I ask why you think that?” Ki-Ja’s careful with his questioning. I know he is curious to hear me open up. I am a little hesitant as to why. Seeing as I’d never breathed a word of this to any living soul, I wasn’t sure that such information was actually meant to be spoken aloud to anyone. “Did your father ever say such words to you directly? Not that I think you are falsifying such a thing by any means. I simply… forgive me. It is difficult to put what I’m thinking into words.”

I shake my head slowly before curling my hands over my chest. “Father always reminded me of my failures. Perhaps if I had been quick-witted, or older, or stronger, I might have cared for him better in the time when only he and I remained in our home. He wasn’t always mean or cruel. Just bitter. Disappointed. Life had turned out so much differently than he anticipated. I understand that; I saw it with my very own eyes.”

“But you do admit that he was mean. And cruel. Particularly to you.”

I shrug indifferently in response. The answer was clear enough. If he wasn’t, would he have wounded me in such a manner?

“Ki-Ja?”

“Yes?”

“How…” Now it my turn to find myself unable to put my thoughts into words. “How did you move on from such a thing? I mean… how did you measure the severity to which it dictates your life?”

 He hums pensively for a short time. “I do not handle it as valiantly as you think that I do. For as a child, I was very fearful of my father. So much so that it caused us both from having a healthy relationship with one another. And for that I have greater regret than perhaps even I realized at the time. But I understood that while I could let such a thing hinder me and cause me to loathe or lament over this power that had been such a cause for discord between us, it would solve nothing. There was still a life to be had; one I had the power to dictate in whichever manner I desired. So I chose to accept what happened to me and use the anguish of my ancestors, who had so patiently waited for the red dragon’s rebirth, to greater serve our reincarnated master and this world in turn.”

The wonder of such a thing leaves me speechless- utterly speechless. For there is a quiet strength in those words. One of great inner peace I knew may have come at the cost of many things over time. He is not prideful. Not loathing. Not even bitter. Accepting of all that had come to be in whatever manner it had come, Ki-Ja looked forward and drew his strength from those darker times to bring about greater light. I could see it in his eyes, and I was sure that if I could see into his soul, such a truth would be reflected back at me as well.

My own tormented soul falls silent. I did not know if I had that same strength within myself. Or perhaps I did but was too weary to dig for it. All this time, I settled deep into the darkness that ensnared me and allowed it to take a foothold in my life. For what good was focusing on a small kernel of light when shadows lurked everywhere around it, waiting for the opportune moment to swallow it whole? It was not as if my whole life was misery. It simply seemed that there had been more hardship than happiness in the grand balance of things, making it so easy to focus on the bad in the great absence of good.

Hearing Ki-Ja’s tale makes me wonder if it is too late for a change myself. Could I too learn to find peace with what had happened to me and allow myself to glean what little joy might await me in the future by doing so? Such a thing required a tremendous leap of faith. One I felt terrible burdening anyone else with simply for the sake of granting my own selfish gain in some regard.

“You…” I press my cheek against the rounded edge of my bent knee and give him a searching look as he stokes the fire before giving me his attention. “Are a very brave person, Ki-Ja. Perhaps the bravest I know.”

His eyes widen dramatically before he quickly averts his gaze, looking slightly flustered by my honest-hearted assessment of his character. “I can hardly accept such lofty praise. There are people in this world who hold such a trait with much greater intensity than I do. Why, I could name a half dozen if not more. All of my brothers and our princess, for instance, merit more praise in that regard than I ever could.”

I feel my heart ache as a somber air now overtakes him. He must miss them terribly. For as happy as I know he had been to return home at long last, he had left the group of people who had been his second family in order to do so. And yet, he never complained. Heavy as I’m sure the burden of sadness to depart from them must have been, he made very light of its weight on his conscious.

“I would like to hear about them.” Unsure of whether such a thing was appropriate to be asked or not, I tread lightly. “These other dragon warriors.”

“I…” He starts hesitantly before falling silent again. My heart slow sinks into despair for his lack of willingness to agree. What a fool! Why should he speak to me of all people on such a topic? “Am afraid I might do them all an injustice since I lack the skill to properly narrate tales, but I would most willingly tell you about them.” I lift my head and follow his movements as he leans to check the dampness of my clothing, shocked into stupor for the agreement he’s given on the matter. “But at another time. Your clothing appears dry enough now. It is best we dress and return to the village.”

 After another awkward exchange between us, both Ki-Ja and I are dressed fully in our own clothing. He’s been a flustered mess yet again upon handing me my clothing and hurrying to excuse himself. I cannot help but smile in humor for his strange mannerisms. To see such a man embarrassed seemed paradoxically comical; for all his power, I could not help but think it to be matched or surpassed by his bashfulness.

Stumbling to my feet proves to be difficult enough. I am no fool to the pain crunching through my ankle. Nor is Ki-Ja, who stands a polite distance away watching me all the while. Still, what was there to be done? I’d have to walk.

“Yojeong,” Ki-Ja comes closer when he sees me grit my teeth as the weight of the hamper held against my hip sends an even more terrible wave of pain cascading through my injured foot. “Perhaps it is best if you do not aggravate the injury to your ankle. I have a proposition, though I am sorry to say it is not the most demure.” He averts his gaze to the forest looming over us in quiet observation. “Would you allow me to carry you a majority of the way back to the village? Such a thing is no strain to my dragon arm, and it would give me peace of mind to know your injury cannot worsen. But if you feel it is improper or something you do not wish to agree to, I understand. I will respect your decision whatever it maybe.”

Fear overtakes me, though only for a moment. While the thought of anyone touching me or having control over my body always terrified me, I understood the implications of this situation were not like most. He simply wished to safeguard my health. The motive behind his reasoning is as clear as day. And while I understood that I may still very well do something to offend him or cause him to wish me harm, I could not see such a scenario really occurring.

Before much longer, I am slung over Ki-Ja’s shoulder watching the forest go in one direction and I another as he pressed forward with my weight secured without a grimace in the hold of his dragon arm and my basket of clothing held secure in his other. Embarrassment eats away at us both. I apologize every time he must readjust me. He apologizes every time his hand slips below its polite placement against my back downward towards my rump. And unable to say more, unable to do anything, I fall into silence watching the leaves fall from the trees in slow dances downward.

Ki-Ja soon begins to speak softly, punctuating the silence with a story about his adventures with the other dragon warriors. My reverie can scarcely be contained as he pieces together this band of heaven-blessed beings who collectively changed Kouka as a whole in ways probably unseen since their last reunion. Each name forms a vision in my mind: Yoon. Hak. Shin-Ah. Jae-Ha. Zeno.

Last but not least is the princess, Yona. I can hear it in his voice when he speaks of her. The love and admiration he felt for this long-awaited master who had returned to them all. Truly her story was one fit for fables. Forced to live a life on the run, forsaken from the once place she called home for a majority of her life upon the murder of her father, only to become single-handedly the savior of this country while asking for nothing in return- not even her throne that rightfully belonged to her. Such a thing held wonder and wisdom without bounds.

But as his narration of their characters comes to an end, so does our time wrapped in this strange situation. The trees have thinned. I know not far beyond us now lies the village. For some reason, the understanding of our arrival saddens me. For lost in my own imagination, I had wholeheartedly enjoyed the time I’d spent simply listening to Ki-Ja talk of one person or another.

“There.” He dips down, bending at half his height to allow my feet easy access to the ground. I screw my eyes shut as my ankle screams at protest when I lay weight upon it. While the pain was horrendous, I knew it could be managed. “Do you believe you are well enough to walk, Yojeong? For if not, I do not mind assisting you further.”

While I would have gladly accepted his help, I understood such a thing could not be done. Gods only knew what terrible tales the villagers would already weave on our behalves when they saw us walking along together. To have him carrying me in would beg for far too many questions. Ones I did not wish to answer nor perhaps even have the answer to even if I did. It was best to simply rely on my own strength. As kind as Ki-Ja was, as helpful as he had been, I was still wary. After all that had happened to me, it truly made it difficult to believe in anyone other than myself.

He sees that I do not wish for further interference and simply totes my basket in his arms as I limp along beside him. The pace we keep is slow. While I am glad to see his patience expended on me time and time again, I realize with a sinking heart that it could not be so after today. For I had no business remaining in his presence. Nor did I think he wished for himself to be in mine other than when absolutely necessary.

After all, he was in almost every sense Hei-Ran’s husband to be. To respect his connection and claim to her person, it was best he did not excite the curiosity of another woman into thinking it was otherwise. And I accepted it. My closest companion’s happiness meant more to me than words could ever express. For unlike me, she deserved to be utterly blissful for as long as she took life. And now that the man she so patiently waited for had returned, she could be just that. I could not ask for more.

The village women are in a slight panic when they observe my very obvious injury. Ki-ja politely prompts one of them to have the healer brought to the hut Hei-Ran and I are sharing. Someone mentions that they would find my friend as well, and the rest just tut a worried comment my way as I dip my head in guilt and mutter a slew of apologies to everyone within earshot for not being more careful. The man beside me reassures me that there was no need for so much regret on such a matter. I press my lips tightly and remind myself that he did not understand that any extra work I brought to this place was something to regret. For I wished to never be a burden to anyone. My existence did not matter enough for it to be so, especially in a place like this.

By afternoon, I lay in bed with my ankle wrapped and dabbed with salve meant to relieve the swelling on its joints, daydreaming endlessly. Hei-Ran’s hovered anxiously for some time but finally acquiesced that she needed to depart to thank Ki-Ja as well as gather our evening meal. I had been worried that the tale of what had happened would have been asked to be recounted on my behalf. And afraid to lie and afraid to tell the truth, I was glad the topic had been avoided altogether. For I did not have the strength to make a boldfaced lie nor confess the compromising situation he and I both had been put in of no real fault of our own.

I eat in contemplation when she returns, lost in pensive thought for the strange sequence of events the day had brought. Odd, how radically different I had acted in Ki-Ja’s company than any man’s since my father died. And how paradoxical, considering the namesake he embodied. A soft-hearted warrior. Could such a man really exist? Did this man really exist in such a manner?

“I am so very glad today turned out as it did.” Hei-Ran reaches for some fermented radish in a communal bowl we were sharing and chews delicately in silence for a few moments. Her beautiful features are creased with slight worry. I’m sure the moment she heard I was injured she dreaded the worst. “And that on top of all things, you and Ki-Ja’s paths happened to overlap. For I know he was of great help to you when no one else could be.”

I hum in meek agreement. “Yes.” I reach for a bite of rice. “He… is a good man.”

And oddly, I didn’t second guess myself admitting such a thing.

Hei-Ran smiles sweetly, though not for long. “And for you to say such a thing yourself proves such a thing to be correct. I truly hope you both might learn to be good friends.”

 _For my sake_. I hear the omitted statement just as easily as if she had spoken it aloud. The implication of it was clear: she truly wished to wed him. Not that I couldn’t see why. He was a well-rounded man who would make a fine fit for her.

“If it brings you happiness, I’ll do my very best.” I gather the empty bowls and limp around to the other side of the room beyond the candle’s burning glow to press a kiss to the top of her head. “It’s my turn to do the dishes tonight, so please excuse me.”

After filling the small wooden vat with some water, I sit staring up at the star-crusted sky high above the mountains we were situated in, thinking of the events of the day. Some make me smile. A few make me stifle a mortified groan. All in all, what lingers the most is the gentle understanding that had flowed so effortlessly between us. No hurt had seemed too great to share. No sin too bold to be forgiven. Wounded by life, we found connection in our brokenness.

“You were right, Grandmother.” I whisper to the heavens, hoping she could hear me. “I did not believe you when you said it, but I do now. He is a man who breaks the mold. One I find I very much find I could be friends with, if he cared enough to want me in his life in such a manner.”


	4. Bonded Through Burden

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: mild description of death, mention of suicide, and brief graphic imagery in the middle of this chapter for those who might have need of a trigger warning on any of those themes.

Autumn passes in slow turning movements of darkening colors and darkening days. But such a season was much beloved by this village. For so many traditions were deep rooted in its presence amongst them.

One very common occurrence was the birth of children. While such a thing happened year-round, the majority of new life brought into this place was most assuredly done during the fall months. It was no surprise, considering that proposals for marriage were given at each solstice in this place. As the first dragon warrior had asked for the hand of his wife on the winter solstice, so did the men of this village who held his namesake follow in a similar manner. Though over time the tradition had grown to allow the summer solstice to be governed with the same rules in mind to appease the growing number of couples this place held.

Hei-Ran keeps herself very busy with tending to these expectant mothers now on the cusp of birthing their long-awaited babes. Some are first time mothers; others on their second or even third child. We all breathe a sigh of relief as the labor pains come and go for them all and the majority of infants are born healthy. It was a good omen; one I feared this place might not know due to my addition amongst it.

Still, there are a few who are either born ill or see their mothers grow ill shortly following their births. A young couple with only a few years of age to me had just had their third child. But the mother had come down with a great sense of weakness following the birth and kept to her bed for her and the newly birthed babe’s wellbeing. Hei-Ran had taken the two children to stay with us while the father kept watch over his wife so there would be no added strain or stress until she fully recovered. And without qualm I’d taken responsibility of the small children without so much as a comment or question from her to do so.

The children are very young and very much full of energy. The little girl prefers to be coddled and is held against my hip as she and her brother, who I supposed could be no more than two years older, zoomed along beside me with all the speed his stubby child legs could muster. There are moments of tears, though thankfully few and far between. I kept my priority on maintaining their safety, though attempting to never be too strict. As someone who had known the trauma of bad parenting, I never wished to continue that cycle with another generation.

Exhaustion eats away at Hei-Ran and I both by the time we both manage to meet well past sunset. We speak a little about our day, about any chores or incoming tasks that we needed to split between ourselves, and of village life in general. She speaks of the construction of new huts for the incoming winter season and the potential for many newlywed couples. There’s an unsung hope in her voice that she would be one of those women.

“I’ll sleep with the children tonight.” She gestures towards the room they’re both already slumbering quietly in. “You go ahead and take my bed tonight, Yojeong. A good night of rest is what you need right now.”

I don’t have the strength to argue with her and remind her that she needed rest much more than I did. The exhaustion mutes her usually sparkling eyes and adds a noticeable shadow smudged beneath them too. As happy as this time of year was for the villagers, there was a great deal of hard work and labor that went into making it so.

“If that’s what you want.” I gather the bowls and take them into my hands. “You’ll need all the experience you get. Who knows? Perhaps by this time next year you’ll be a mother yourself.”

She just tuts my name but doesn’t really put up an argument to negate me. The rosy-cheeked complexion over taking her as I pass by reminds me that she really didn’t have to defend herself from holding such a desire. Hei-Ran was a kind person. Healthy and young with love abundant to give, she’d make a wonderful wife and an equally wonderful mother.

That night I’m wracked with nightmares about my own parents and wake trembling violently in a cold sweat. The visions had been so real. The torment so believable. Beaten down in a never-ending spiral of violence, I died a thousand deaths in my dreams.

Desperate for air, I quickly flee the quiet safety of the hut and pad barefoot through the sleeping village. The tranquility of the darkened scenery soothes me immensely. The demons that ensnared me endlessly begin to back off, quieting in their merciless tirade as the gentle coolness presiding in the air fills my lungs and calms my tense muscles ready to burst. Every part of me ached for release; though from what I wasn’t exactly certain.

My aimless walk becomes a subconscious retreat to some place I do not realize I intended to reach all along until I arrive there. Grandmother’s gravestone is simply a muted mass of stone this deep into the night; all the same I feel the weight of her missing presence and sink to my knees, weary enough to cry but too tired to produce a single tear. In those moments, I feel very weak. Very powerless. Very small. The weight of my meaningless existence bears down relentlessly upon me, and I cannot help but wonder why I’d even been born.

The understanding of how much of a burden I was was becoming apparently clear in this place. Hei-Ran would soon be married and have her life by Ki-Ja’s side as she always intended. And unable to brush aside the wellbeing of the village as a whole when she did become the White Dragon’s wife, my singular wellbeing couldn’t preside over anyone else’s. Besides, I did not wish for her to live a life fretting over me in such a mundane manner as that. She had her own life to live. Everyone in this village did. To expect for them to put aside any more time than they already had fussing over what a mangled mess I was selfish, childish, and ridiculous.

“Grandmother, if you knew this, why did you keep me alive?” I croak into the silence, so full of shame and remorse for having life when she did not that I would have gladly ended my own this very second to bring her back to this village she loved and loved her so deeply in return. “Wouldn’t it have been better to simply end my misery that night? Didn’t you see that the universe wished for my existence to be snuffed alongside my father’s?”

The events of that day are truly as muddled as ever. One thing sticks out with stark clarity, however: father’s overly drunken body dead where he sat. He’d stopped working altogether by that point. And in turn, we’d stopped eating. The little money we had he spent on liquor a neighbor nearby made. When that was spent he borrowed and begged until they gave him his fill. I begged him to stop; that he was hurting himself by doing so. And in turn, he’d hurt me so badly I never uttered another word to him on the subject. That day he died we hadn’t spoken a single word to one another. And now, we never would.

By the time my grief had registered, and the weight of my nonexistent future settled deep into my bones, I’d wandered into the woods around twilight with no intent of coming out alive. For out in the world, there would be nothing for me. Chun was gone; he would never come back. I’d only be a burden to everyone without a penny to my name and no intention to ever marry. I numbly accepted I’d follow my father to the afterlife and take the judgment of the cosmos, whatever it may be.

Many mushrooms grew lush on the moist forest floor that night. No longer burdened by a fear of death, I remember reaching for a larger one growing in a strange orangish-brown hue I did not recognize and ravenously eating it without hesitation. For I had known hunger as a companion quite dearly those last few days. And hurt, hungry, and alone, I wished to fill my aching belly full of poison and die a miserable death knowing fully well how terribly I’d failed everyone in my life.

But unfortunately- or fortunately for me. To this day, I still didn’t quite know which to believe held more verity in light of all that had happened- I’d eaten a mushroom known as the Laughing Gynt, known for its hallucinative properties that thankfully were only temporary and usually did not cause death in and of itself. Though I am sure I would have gladly taken death over the events that had happened following. Apparently, I’d clawed my way up the steep terrain towards the base of the village’s boundary weeping and laughing and muttering nonsense I to this day held no memory of. And worst of all, I’d had a clear intent to injure myself and had beaten my head relentlessly against a tree until I was so bloodied and bruised that I rendered myself unconscious from the bevy of blows.

In all honesty if the guards had left me untouched where I lay or even chosen to end my miserable life after falling unconscious, I would not have held it against them. But too sympathetic were these villagers, despite their wariness for strangers in their midst, and I did not waste away in solitude as I’m sure nature intended. And time and time again, they saved me from myself. Though I was beginning to wonder when they’d put aside such selfless sentiments and tell me to manage on my own strength for once.

Miserable, I sit with my arms curled tightly against my shins and my chin propped against my knees staring weakly at the grave before me. So many questions haunted me. So many thoughts tormented me. Free. That one word sends my soul aching ceaselessly within me. I just wanted to be set free from all of this.

A warm sensation flooding my shoulders jolts me back to my surroundings. Opening my sleep-crusted eyes I had not realized I’d even shut to begin with, I see a material of clothing that did not belong to me now placed on my being. Frightened to have been found, let alone touched without my realization, I flinch violently as someone’s presence registers at the edge of my peripheral vision. Paralyzed in place, I could not decipher their identity or even offer even a single word in apology to have caused them to intervene when they processed my solitary presence here.

“A restless night.” And like a spell, the sound of Ki-Ja’s voice melts away my terror in an instant. Sure enough, when I tilt my chin, he is settled on the ground beside me in what appeared to be his sleepwear looking slightly disheveled himself. He turns to look at me a moment later, his smile light- almost forced- before he politely returns his gaze to the sky above our heads. “Though I’m sorry to see it is not only me who is affected by such a sentiment. You look troubled, Yojeong. What brings you to Granny’s grave at such a time?”

I look at the grave then down at my feet. While there had always been safety in my silence, for some reason, I did not wish to remain silent around this man. For unlike any who resided here, he knew the weight of my misery and could judge me from another perspective.

“I’m afraid.”

“Afraid?” He sounds genuinely concerned by my confession. “Whatever for? Has something happened in the village to frighten you?”

I lift my shoulders beneath his robe in a half-formed shrug. “Watching everyone moving forward reminds me of how stagnant I am. Will it always be this way? Will I ever… be able to change? Or is it all a lost cause? Does the universe simply wish for me to bow my head and accept defeat? For I see nothing,” I bring my limbs closer than they already were. “Nothing that could come of my future.”

Ki-Ja remains silent. My defeat grows. So he even he understood there were no words he could make to negate me. For it was truth. As ugly and painful as such a sentiment was to accept, it still existed: I held no worth.

“If only my brothers were here.” Ki-Ja sighs at length some time after we’ve fallen into a place where I thought no words could fall. “For if you met them and heard the full extent of their stories, you would understand that the universe has mysterious uses for us all despite the tragedies that torment us into believing we are but mere specks of dust upon its surface. For I’m sure none of them would have thought themselves of any use to anyone in the years prior to their call to serve Yona.”

A burning laugh of denial burns in my throat. The dragon warriors, made to feel useless or weighed down by a worthless future? Such a thing could hardly be possible. They were fated with a gift from the heavens, for the sake of the stars! They were no mere mortals. So how? How could such a thing be true?

“I can see in your eyes that you do not believe me.” Ki-Ja says with a quickly fading edge of humor as he readjusts himself in the dirt. “But I would not falsify someone else’s past simply to make a point. My brothers… suffered such great pain before we met. While I am sure you see how our village treats me and believe it to be the norm for the other warriors, I must inform you that such a thing was tragically not the case. When we found Shin-Ah, his village kept him locked deep within the mazework of caves they resided in like some sort of animal. He had no name. No real social contact with anyone other than the curse-spewing people who made him believe himself a monster when he in all actuality is the most generous, selfless man I’ve ever met. And while I’ve never seen Jae-Ha’s village, I know from what little he will offer on his past that they chained him to a wall for the first twelve years of his life until he managed to escape. Even Zeno, who you would most assuredly believed knew no sorrow if you met him, has lived to see every generation of warriors be born and die in an endless cycle. For he himself cannot die- he will be the first and last yellow dragon warrior. But he carries the burden of these last thousand years with a calmness I can only say is otherworldly and wishes to bring happiness to all he is in the presence of. Such a thing gives his long life meaning.”

I reel as the weight of his words washes over me. Such pain. Such horror. To be abandoned by the very people who should have nurtured and protected you. To be feared for something I’m sure none of these men consciously chose to carry within themselves. Beaten, bound, and broken… These were the pasts of the warriors who had saved this country? I could hardly believe it. But yet, why would Ki-Ja weave such wild stories if it was not so? He did not seem the type to fabricate things to such a degree simply to make a point with me.

Which meant it was all true. Despite all of their heartache, these men found the power to become more than it. To put their own sufferings aside to aid those who were suffering and beaten down. Such a thing inspired me. Could I do the same of my own strength? To become less so this world could gain more?

“But to answer your questions, Yojeong, I think that the universe intends for you to have life because there is meaning to it. Do not compare yourself to others or worry too strongly on their own behalf simply to belittle your own. No one can be asked other than to find peace with what time they’ve been given on this planet and find happiness amongst the sorrow. So long as you can find some joy in continuing, regardless of how grand or minute the source of contentment is, that is all that is of importance. And if I, in whatever manner I could ever be of aid to you, can assist you, please do not ever hesitate to ask. We all wish you well- myself included.”

The selfless support he offers warms my soul in ways I could not describe with ease. Time and time again, this man intervened on my behalf when I knew I was unworthy of such singular attention. And yet all the same, it is genuine. Never forced, never appeasing simply for the sake of propriety, Ki-Ja’s kindness exuded so naturally from his heart to anyone who was in need of it.

Still, was it alright to hope? That despite everything that happened, that I could continue along in such a meek manner as always without fear of angering the village or losing my place amongst them? For I would gladly continue on as I had- gladly taken in the small joys of village life and the woods beyond as I had for years now. Even if that meant accepting Hei-Ran and Ki-Ja would marry soon and bear children, I could be happy. Knowing we could all exist in each other’s lives and wished to be tied close in companionship all the same was enough for me. I know it would be.

“It is still very late.” Slightly saddened by his polite prompt, I understood that he was trying to gently remind me that it was best not to linger much longer in each other’s presences. “You should go back home now and attempt to get a little rest before dawn breaks.”

Knowing I was in no position to argue, I simply nod and stand to my feet. He does so a moment later, looking a little sluggish, though the mild expression on his face reassures me not to worry. We both stare at each other, looking although not really doing so, and I realize with some confusion that I am saddened to be taking my leave of him.

Emotion overtakes me without warning. When I turn to hand him back the outer robe he’s lent to me, I end up hugging him tightly with perhaps a little more strength than might have been welcomed or wanted from the embrace. And I’m unafraid to be touching him, knowing clearly well I was imposing on his physical boundaries as well as allowing him access to seep beneath my own. All in all, I am at peace. A strange sentiment I’d felt but maybe thrice before in the entirety of my life.

“Thank you.” My words are muffled by the material of his clothing. “For all you’ve done for me, Ki-Ja.”

He wraps one arm softly across my back, completing the gesture. “There’s never a need to thank me. So long as I have been of help in some manner, that is the greatest thanks I could receive.”

  We stand and embrace for a few moments longer. I am warm- very warm. But it transcends simply the physical barrier of my skin and seeps deep within me to parts I did not know existed. And lost in its comforting heat that was neither overbearing nor uncomfortable, I am at peace to exist simply as we were in those moments.

But as etiquette demanded of us, we both let go of each other and stand a small distance apart. I had done so only reluctantly as Ki-Ja began to pull away first. While I would have never considered myself clingy by any means of the word, I was not blind to see the connection that bound me to this man in more ways than I doubted he or I fathomed in these moments.

“Best to be getting home now.” He nudges his head encouragingly towards the darkness behind me. “Swift feet, Yojeong. And sweet dreams to follow when you lay your head to slumber.”

I take his well wishes with a nod of my head in passing. And after murmuring a quiet goodbye to him, I go with some speed down the path to do as he asked of me. Perhaps as he wished I truly would have good dreams tonight. While they might not be long, even one pleasant omen was one more than I had at this very moment.

It isn’t until I’ve veered off the path leading toward the cemetery that I realize that Ki-Ja was still well awake at this time of night. I couldn't help but ponder what could have plagued him enough to disrupt his own cycle of rest as abruptly as my own


	5. Pain and Pride

Refreshed by my renewed outlook on the world, I take to living through the next day with a spring to my step. While outwardly, I’m sure my mannerisms were no different than normal, within me I was well aware of the crisp perspective I was viewing the world through now. Any little joy was accounted for. Every blessing graciously thanked, and every breath preciously guarded.

_Live._ I tell every fiber of my being that had died every day for far too long. _Even if we are to be put another speck of dust that fills this universe, so be it. It is alright. We must find contentment with what we have while it lasts._

The children seem well aware of my rejuvenated energy and take full advantage of it. We run through the village, often tagging in other children to join into our escapades, much to the humor or mild enjoyment of the older villagers who watched on as they too went about their days. While I’m sure at times we were being disruptive to the hut-building not far in the distance or the other daily activities of this small, bustling community, no one ever says a word edgewise or interrupts our joyful jaunts.

“Ki-Ja!” The little girl in my arms squeals with childish delight as I gather her and her brother following the end of our games in the village center. “Ki-Ja! Hewwo!”

I turn, confused as to why she was suddenly shouting that man’s name like every fiber of her tiny being could not contain her excitement, and sure enough, he is walking along in the distance in our direction. He lifts a hand when he notes that I’m aware of his approach, his face brightened by a kind smile in greeting, and I find myself honestly happy to see him.

“Well hello there, Mi-Hi. Jee.” He ruffles the boy’s hair under his human hand before smiling a little more sweetly at the little girl. His gaze lifts to me after a moment, and the look, while still warm, holds a different energy to it. “And Yojeong, of course. What have you three been up to today?”

“We played lotsa games!” Jee beams a smiling showing places where his new set of teeth had not quite grown in yet. “Capture the wolf, leaf tag, and all sortsa stuff! It was so much fun.”

“Mm.” His little sister nods enthusiastically. “Lotsa fun.”

“Why that sounds like a wonderful day.” Ki-Ja’s eyes hold another conversation as they hold my own. He’s searching. As for what, I couldn’t tell you. “And where are you off to now?”

“To eat snacks!” The boy cheers with his hands in the air. “And lots of ‘um! I’m hungry.”

“Me too! Me hungwy too!” Mi-Hi pouts as if we seemingly forgot to include her for some reason. “Me want a snack!”

“We’re all going to go eat. Just be patient.” I hush her gently while readjusting her against my hip. I smile apologetically at Ki-Ja when I’m finished. “You’ll have to excuse them for being a little short-tempered. A little food and some rest is in order for the little ones. We’ll be on our way so we don’t cause a scene.”

“Let me assist you.” Ki-Ja offers with a gentle smile. “You have far too much to manage on your own.”

My eyes widen. “Oh, please don’t think that. I’m sorry if I looked overwhelmed. I’m fine. Really. Don’t disrupt your own day just to aid me.”

“Yay! Ki-Ja come too!” The little girl seems to have selective hearing and leans out of my hold, clearly demanding to be carried by him instead. “I share my snack wiff you!”

He takes her into his hold with only a small chuckle for her innocent generosity. Clearly understanding that he was now wrangled into joining us, I simply extend a hand in the direction of our hut and we all begin to walk that way. The children keep the silence at bay, speaking a hundred words a minute at Ki-Ja who intently listens to it all while managing a few words edgewise to reassure them that he was honestly paying attention to their childish babble. It’s a very heartwarming scene for reasons too numerable to count. What a man. Was there anything he couldn’t do?

Back at the hut, he distracts the dizzying duo as I steep us all some tea and set some sweetened rice cakes onto a wicker tray for us all to enjoy. The children both adored him and happily soaked up every second of interaction they had with the warrior. Not that I could not understand why. Ki-Ja was a good man. Perhaps the best I’d ever had the pleasure of meeting in my lifetime. He would be a kind father and a good husband. Hei-Ran would have her heart’s desires and I think in turn, so would he.

They both vie for his attention, which he gives as freely to each of them without ever being forced or faked for that matter. I quietly keep the peace from a distance, making sure the children didn’t choke or that they minded their manners when they may have forgotten they had any. By the time they’ve both had their fill and started slumping over into myself or Ki-Ja, my head’s spinning. I scarcely had time to think with all of their words endlessly taking up all the space in my brain.

I breathe a prayer of gratitude to the heavens when they both come inside for a nap without much of a fight. Mi-Hi is very attached to Ki-Ja and doesn’t seem very pleased to know she’d be parting with him, but after a quiet comment from him that I couldn’t make out, she hugs him tightly and presses a kiss to his cheek before stumbling along to me as I waited in the doorway nearby with Jee. She mumbles that she was going to marry him in a half-slurred statement to me as I lay her down in bed beside her brother, and it takes all the strength within me not to giggle at her innocent plight. How simple love was through the eyes of a child.

He is still seated outside when I return a short time later. I can’t help but be curious as to why he’s lingering here. There’s a foolish belief that it’s on my behalf that’s quickly cut down. No, that wouldn’t be the case. Perhaps he was just waiting to intercept Hae-Ran who was sure to return herself soon enough. Surely with how rarely their times to meet occurred, such a thing had to be his reasoning behind remaining here in my company for now.

“Thank you.” He says kindly when I refill his mug without being prompted to do so. I dip my head as I settled back down on the edge of the small wooden ledge that elevated the hut off the ground to his right and nurse a sip of my own serving of tea grown cold since I’d last managed to touch it. “Did you manage any rest last night after we parted ways?”

I nod slowly. “A little.” Suddenly remembering that I’d neglected to ask after his own wellbeing considering his own sleepless night, I opt to venture cautiously onto the topic. “How about you? Is… everything alright? I’m sorry. Perhaps I’m prying. You don’t have to answer.”

“There’s no need to feel ashamed when wishing to check on someone’s wellbeing.” He reminds me gently, reassuring me that my honest concern hadn’t been taken in the wrong fashion. “Nor is there any need to worry on my behalf. I’m alright.”

For some reason, I’m not entirely inclined to believe him. Maybe he had just had unpleasant dreams or some strange circumstance that made him unable to sleep the entire night through. Everyone had sleepless nights. But it just felt as though it was something more than such a mundane excuse anyone could use that was the culprit. Something larger. Something he didn’t wish for me to know.

There’s an ache in my chest that’s followed quickly by a flare of anger. Why wouldn’t he be honest with me? Did he think me unworthy of knowing such a thing about him after all the personal details we’d uttered to one another time and time again? Or was there something else that made him hold his tongue around me- some fault or defect that made me lesser in his mind to receive such delicate details in strict confidentiality?

_He is not yours_. The sudden thought barrel like a sharp weapon through my torso, halting my breath for a moment. _You cannot command him to speak what you wish to hear. You are not the one his soul aches to make known as its equal. Accept this and understand that his silence should be respected whatever the reason behind it may be._

Whether it by miracle or by chance, Hei-Ran appears once we’ve sat in an uncomfortable silence for some time. The relief in both of our voices is apparent, though I hope it isn’t as noticeable to her. But when my friend glows with a growing brightness to her features as she grins from ear to ear to the pair of us, I know she’s too enamored by Ki-Ja’s presence to thankfully pay any mind to anything else.

The two are quickly engrossed into their own little world as soon as she takes the empty spot to his left. There’s talk of the new huts slowly being built by the warrior himself and a group of able-bodied village men, reparations of older houses being given from elderly citizens who were being moved with other villagers, and the progressively growing list of pregnant mothers who’ve either already given birth or would shortly being doing so in the coming weeks. I feel like an intrusion with every passing moment that I sit in silence offering nothing to their conversation. Frustrated for reasons I can’t really fathom, I slide off the platform and onto the dirt below.

“Yojeong?” Ki-Ja is the first to notice my withdrawal from their side and calls my name with some concern. I grit my teeth, barely containing the sharp words urging me to inform him that I wasn’t some wounded lamb who needed to be coddled every moment of every day. “Are you alright?”

“I’m sorry.” I frown, hating that every other sentence that ever passed through my lips was the very one I’d just uttered. “I’m in the way again.”

“What? I don’t understand.” He says with honest confusion. “Please sit back down, Yojeong, and relax yourself. You’re in no one’s way. Right, Hae-Ran? She’s most assuredly not bothering either of us, is she?”

I tear off blindly down the path before my friend is forced to offer a pleasantry to keep me there when I know she didn’t want me to be. In the time Ki-Ja had been here, she’d slipped farther and farther away from me. Which as much as I understood it would happen, the realization of knowing it occurred still pained me.

Change. No matter how much I prepared myself for it, when it was actually upon me, I grew increasingly irritable and frightened. But to have life was to know change. From one stage to the next, it continued to move ever forward. I couldn’t keep Hae-Ran tethered to my side. She needed change too. Good changes. Wholesome ones that made her life bigger and better.

Then why? What bothered me so badly to aggravate me so acutely?

 I realize the real question is who a few moments later. His name is uttered through gritted teeth: Ki-Ja.

 It wasn’t so much that I was upset with him. I was upset with myself. Wall after wall I’d torn down due to his involvement in my life. So much so that I’d come to unrealistically expect for him to be there for me in the manner that I desired all for the sake of my own sanity. Hungry for his attention, greedy for his compassion, I’d let myself believe he cared for me in a way that he most likely did not. It wasn’t that I believed he loved me- not in a romantic manner. For I had clear eyes that such a tender connection bonded him to Hae-Ran- although I knew he honestly wished me well in every manner possible.

I just…desperately wanted someone to fill the hole Granny had left in my life upon her death.

A place I was beginning to realize no one might be able to fill no matter how desperately wished for it to be so.

He reminded me so much of her. Too much of her. It was all so clear why I’d grown so fond of him- why I didn’t want us to go our separate ways.

But it was wrong to entrust such a heavy responsibility onto his shoulders of my own accord. I could not continuously count on someone else to come and be my savior. I’d borne my sadness in solitude for so long. It was best not to impose my tragic tale on anyone else.

Moving forward meant accepting there were things beyond my control and things that were in it. I could not control other people. I could simply acknowledge their decisions and aid them whenever possible. Life was too short to wallow forever in sorrow. As painful as the weight of carrying my burdens singularly might be, there was still happiness to be had.

By the time I return to the hut, Ki-Ja is already gone and the children have already woken from their naps. It is well into the evening when I even get a chance to be alone with Hae-Ran, who looks as if the weight of her exhaustion has finally caught up with her and she has nothing but sleep on her mind. These last few weeks really have kept her busy. Perhaps too busy. But she never complained. Not even once. She really was the hardest working person in this village by far.

“I’m sorry.” I say slowly after we’ve put the children to bed for the evening and retired into her room afterwards. She sits brushing my obnoxiously long mane of hair in a patient sort of silence when I’m sure she would have rather just slammed the fine-toothed comb into my hands and told me to do it myself for once. “About leaving so abruptly earlier. I should have been more polite. I should have excused myself somehow.”

“It’s alright.” She says calmly before yawning. “I know you were just trying to be helpful. Ki-Ja was very worried when it happened. He didn’t like the thought of you wandering off alone.”

I hum a short acknowledgement, feeling slightly guilty that I acted without thinking more often than not. It was really an instinctual reaction by this point. Whenever something upset me, I ran.

“Hei-Ran?”

She pauses her brushing when she hears the timid tone of my voice. “Yes? What is it?”

“Has he given you any indication? That he’s going to propose during the solstice?”

She’s quiet. I press my lips together. Yet again, I’d asked a question I had no right asking.

“No.” A mixture of shock and sadness ebbs through my veins at the sound of her honest response. “He has not. I think… he has yet to become re-accustomed to village life. After all, he only returned to us but three turnings of the moon ago. It is best to be patient. I am sure his journeys have weighed very heavily upon him. Accepting that they are now over may take some time for him.”

I dip my chin. I’d never really thought about it in that manner. Such a change must be very difficult to process. Constantly being on the road with no promise of shelter or even food for that matter rewires your body in a way that is difficult to comprehend. Not to mention all the hardships and horrors that must have happened right before his eyes. It was a great deal to fathom. One, like my friend so poignantly said, might still be unraveling its weight on his life at this very moment in time.

“It must be difficult.” I acquiesce, knowing that even I couldn’t scratch at the surface of what he was thinking or feeling. He made it all seem so manageable, though. Always helpful, always calm, always seemingly happy, Ki-Ja downplayed his own problems whenever he saw a larger one that needed to be dealt with. Which, while kind, didn’t exactly seem healthy either. His own problems were important too. Someone should be there to help him just as easily as he helped everyone around him. “Accepting one chapter of your life is over forever is never easy. And yet he… never makes it known.”

Instantly, I feel guilty about last night and my self-centered actions that had taken from him without offering anything in return. I was so blind. Wrapped so deeply in my own problems and sorrows, I always diminished the fact that everyone suffered- sometimes right in front of my very eyes.

“That’s just the way men are.” Hae-Ran reassures me that there wasn’t much to be done regardless of how miserable I felt about wanting to correct it. “They keep their feelings to themselves unless it’s unavoidable. I just hope, given time, he’ll find someone to confide in. It would not do him nor any of us any good to continuously bottle it up within him. We are his village- his people. If he can’t be open and honest with one of us, then to what purpose do we exist?”

There’s no answer I can give to her because I wasn’t really a part of this village he belonged to. Still, I wished he would find the strength to be weak, as strange as such a thing sounded. For while he may be the White Dragon warrior, and the greatly esteemed master of this place, he was still a man. A mortal man with faults, feelings, and failings just like any other.

“If there’s anyone who could comfort him in such a manner it would be you, Hae-Ran.” I remind her quietly when she’s begun to brush my hair again. “I’m sure in time he’ll bear his heart openly to you.”


	6. Small Tokens; Hidden Treasures

The next few nights I dream of Ki-Ja.

And the visions I see fill me with such an air of sadness I wake to find that I am weeping.

While the dreams do not come in one singular fashion, the motive behind them is always the same. His smiling features slowly corrode until he is bent over, cradling either his dragon arm or his head, looking as if he is in great agony. And no matter how much I scream for someone to come to his rescue- no matter how badly my heart bleeds to relieve him of this terrible torment that looks like it is moments away from destroying him- I am of no help. And he dies. Every time, he dies a painful death no one can save him from.

I do not know why I cannot shake off these visions. Were they a premonition of what was to come? Surely not. For all I’d seen of him in the last week, he’d seemed as healthy and happy as ever. And a man such as himself- fit and able-bodied enough to single-handedly build every new hut added into the village in the last turning of the moon- did not seem like he would succumb to sickness or death any time soon. Especially in that gruesome a manner.

Still, my thoughts cannot let me be. It seemed wrong to fret and worry in any anxious manner, but no matter how much I attempted to reassure myself that it was just a dream, my mind is uneasy. And ever worried for his wellbeing, I opt to do something that had once brought me great peace when I had been a child.

The good luck charm had first been fashioned by my brother Chun right after we’d lost our mother as she battled so valiantly to birth twins only to die moments later from the strain. We had to bury three of our family that day, leaving only the three of us left behind to grieve. I’d only been seven at the time- Chun, nine. We’d stood beside the earthen graves marked only with a few pebbles hand in hand. I’d wept and wept to no end, unable to cope with the loss of our mother. Chun remained silent as the grave from that day onward.

I remember him smoothing the charm into my smaller hand a few nights following and speaking of its power as if he’d known it firsthand. The flimsy little handmade trinket was beautiful beyond words in those moments of loss and heartache. How could a small pebble with leaves fashioned to look like little wings truly do anything? But at that time when everything was frightening and the world unbelievably cruel, I’d put my faith into that little fairy stone to make it right again.

While foraging through the forest one afternoon once the children have returned to their recovered mother, I search for the finest materials to recreate the fairy stone. It was funny that Fate had led Grandmother to give me the name Yojeong when I refused to give her my birth-name. I’m sure to her and many of the villagers I must have appeared to be a fairy. Appearing out of nowhere, lost and dazed like I had come from another world entirely… there was so much about me that was fae-like. And I loved this name I’d been gifted so dearly. Why to this day I chose to completely discard my former name and embrace this one wholeheartedly as my true title. For it held a tie to my past and present in ways I doubted Grandmother realized it would when she chose it.

The pristine leaves are pressed to the back of the smooth, perfectly round pebble with sap from trees in the woods. I sit and watch it dry, whispering well-wishes to it on Ki-Ja’s behalf like I had for myself when I had the one made by Chun as a child. While some part of me knew doing this would change nothing, another part of me innocently believed in the magic that had come to my rescue long ago. And if anyone needed that magic now, it was this man who carried a sea of sorrow within him in absolute silence.

He’s fortifying the last of the newly constructed huts that afternoon. I sit with my foraging nearby, but not too close in proximity, sorting the various forest fungi and herbs so that I did not look as out of place as I must have appeared. Women offer for me to come step inside with them for tea and children beg to have me start a game for them, but I quietly excuse myself from them all, knowing that if I didn’t get Ki-Ja’s attention the moment he was free, I’d have another uneasy night of sleep probably plagued with another nightmare about him.

“Hello, Yojeong.” I’m startled back to reality by his voice calling out to me. Glancing up, I see that he’s standing politely nearby to one side so he wasn’t towering over me where I sat. His blue eyes seem vibrant today- more so than usual. And the warm rush of blood to his cheeks from the exertion of lifting and building gives his pale features a healthy appearance. “Have you returned recently from foraging? Are Mi-Hi and Jee not with you today?”

I shake my head slowly. “Their mother just finished recovering. Hae-Ran took them home this morning.”

“I see.” His smile grows a fraction. “That’s good to hear. I’d been meaning to stop by this evening myself, so I’m relieved to hear that all is well.”

“Yes.” I say a little awkwardly, so aware of the need to tie in some way to give him my gift that I have trouble finding something meaningful to say in the meantime. “We are very fortunate to have her in good health again so soon.”

“Indeed we are.” His eyes move to scan the village beyond. They lower back to me after a moment. His smile returns. “You must be parched from scavenging through the forest all day. Would you like to take tea with me? I find I’m in need of a warm beverage myself.”

Gods, I could have cried in gratefulness for such a fortuitous blessing dropped suddenly from the heavens.

“If you don’t mind.” I look away, hoping the excitement wasn't apparent on my face. “I think some tea would be nice.”

He leads the way through the village in the direction of the White Dragon’s place of residence. I’m a little paranoid that I can’t make any small talk, though the silence isn’t uncomfortable. Ki-Ja thankfully makes conversation himself when we’ve walked too long without words, commenting on the nice progression of autumn or the growing village. I usually just hum an agreement or nod, berating myself all the while that I seemed less than competent enough to offer something more in response.

“Ki-Ja,” Knowing that tea would be infinitely more unbearable if I didn’t get this off my chest, I rush to gather his attention before we arrive at his place of residence. “I, um, have something I’d like to give to you. If that’s alright with you, that is. You don’t have to accept it.”

He pauses now and gives me his full attention. “There’s no need to be so hesitant, Yojeong. What is it you have for me?”

I take the charm from the small satchel tied to my waist and extend it slowly over to him. He plucks it carefully with his human hand and examines it in silence for a few moments. It’s clear from his curious gazes that he doesn’t quite understand the significance. My cheeks grow hot. While I was very familiar with the purpose of this trinket, I forgot that he held no prior knowledge of the significance of such a thing.

“This is called a fairy stone.” I clarify with mild embarrassment. “My brother, Chun, once made me one when we were children. He said it was a gateway that allowed good energy from the cosmos to be kept close to your person. A good luck charm, I suppose, in the plainest of terms.”

“I see.” He continues to examine the charm for a few more moments before lifting his eyes to me. I relax slightly when his lips budge into a tiny smile. “May I ask why you’ve chosen to make one for me?”

I fidget nervously, shifting my weight from one foot to the other. “I, um…. Felt like you needed it for some reason. I-I don’t want to pry but it just appeared to me that you may be dealing with things. Heavy things. Sad things. I just wanted you to know that I hope… you find happiness at the end of it all. And to remind you, I suppose, that you don’t have to carry it all alone.”

He goes quiet. For a moment, I dread that the sudden silence is an ill omen. Oh no. Had I done wrong in giving him such a thing? Was he angry? Would he yell at me? I instinctively take a step backwards as I remember my father harboring this same sort of calm just before a storm of abusive anger.

“Thank you.” I hurriedly glance over to see that he is curling his fingers around the fairy stone now. The look on his face is still smiling, but there is a very tangible sadness there. It was as if he knew there was no point in shielding it any longer. “You have a very kind and perceptive heart, Yojeong, to have felt inclined to make this for me. It is a very precious gift to receive. I will cherish it greatly.”

A strange warmth blooms in my chest for his genuine gratitude. “You’re welcome.” I reply, just as nervous as I had been this entire exchange. “I hope it serves its purpose well.”

Knowing that I’d accomplished what I came to do, I dip my head in farewell and begin to walk away. However, a hand wrapped carefully around my wrist restricts me from taking more than a couple of steps. I look over my shoulder, confused and alarmed to have been stopped, and see that Ki-Ja has extended his dragon arm to do so.

“Where are you going?” He asks, his blue eyes shimmering with some concern. Even now, he has yet to release me. “Have I offended you in some manner, Yojeong?”

I shake my head. “No. I was going to return back to the village. It seems wrong to impose on you now that you have the fairy stone.”

 The look on his face changes to an emotion I’m not entirely sure how to read. “Please, don’t go.” His hold on my wrist tightens just a fraction, but it is not painful. “Stay and have tea with me. Didn’t you promise to do so a short time ago?”

“Yes, well…” I find myself at a loss for words. He was pleading with me to stay? Why? “Wouldn’t you like for me to go find Hae-Ran? I’m sure she’s more in need of tea than I am.”

Ki-Ja’s expression grows crestfallen. “I’ll speak to Hae-Ran at another time this afternoon. For now, I’d like to spend some more time with you. Though perhaps I am asking too much. I just hoped… we would not have to part ways so soon.”

Moved that he desired my company as desperately as he did, I relent. “If that’s what you wish, I have no objections.”

“Wonderful.” His whole aura seems to brighten as he finally releases his hold on me. “Let’s continue on then.”

Before long, we’ve settled ourselves in the open-air sitting room of his home with a basket of some sweetened sticky rice that’s been toasted over an open flame and a pot of tea for our consumption. I pour the beverage for us both without being asked and don’t make much of a fuss when Ki-Ja thanks me with gusto. Perhaps he saw my mangled hand struggling to do the job well and felt sympathetic enough to praise me to that degree. After all, pouring tea hardly required the level of gratitude he’d offered.

A quiet sort of calm envelops us both. I nibble contently on a wedge of the warm sticky rice, watching Ki-Ja all the while. He sits with his dragon hand wrapped around the hot ceramic mug of tea I’m mildly horrified to see does not scald him while the other smooths over the fairy stone he’s ceased to let go of since being given it. His clear azure eyes twinkle endlessly as they move to observe the little artifact in his hold. I know without words spoken that he is honestly happy for my gift. Which in turn makes me very happy too.

“The design of your fairy stone makes me think of Yoon.” Ki-Ja comments suddenly, drawing my wandering curiosity back to him. “He was very fond of this particular hair adornment he’d had at the beginning of our journeys. It was shaped sort of like this, though with wings fashioned from small feathers. He wore it constantly until it was beyond repair. Our princess immediately offered to buy him a new one to replace it, but he tutted over her wasting what little money we had at our disposal on something so frivolous.” Ki-Ja chuckles. “But then he’d go and buy her something from the markets, completely disregarding his own words. It made us all laugh.”

I can see the scene as easily as he describes it. What a well-melded group. It was no wonder he thought of them all as a second family. One I was beginning to wonder why he even left at all.

“Yoon… was the healer of the group.” I rehash the information I remember him once offering to me all those many weeks ago during our awkward encounter at White Claw Falls. “Is that right?”

“Yes, but he was much more than that.” Ki-Ja smiles softly down at the table. “He cooked for us, mended our clothing, and made sure everyone had their needs met in every manner possible. Hak jokingly called him our mother once, and the title stuck. He’d always gripe and groan at the sound of it; however, he never once defended himself against it. He was a courageous young man. One who’d grown into a splendid adult throughout our time together.”

“Where is he now? I mean, where did he end up after your journeys ended?”

“He is at the capital of the Sky Tribe. With the others.” There’s a very visible pain in his smile now. “Yona was with child when I left. He remained behind to see to the safety of its birth as well as care for the rest of Hak’s tribe. Mundok, the former tribe leader and Hak’s adoptive grandfather, takes in many orphaned or ill individuals to be cared for by his clan.”

I nod. “I see. And is it a far journey? To the Sky Tribe from where we are, that is. I’m sorry that I don’t know, but I really have no knowledge on the geography of Kouka.”

“I would say it is not a particularly long journey. Just one that takes a strain on one’s limbs due to terrain, considering that it partakes mostly on mountainous paths that can take some fineness to traverse. Let us say that we are here, in the White Dragon village,” He clears a space on the table between us and circles an imaginary location to the west. “Then the capital of the Sky Tribe would roughly reside around here.” He now moves his finger to sweep towards the center of the table. “All in all, it would be but a five day journey hence.”

“No, not particularly long when taking all things into consideration.” I agree reluctantly, knowing that to him, who spent much of his life traveling from one corner of the country to another, five days was a mere feat of no great significance. To someone like me, who never traveled more than a day, at that, found it to be quite daunting. “I hope, knowing that, that it might be a journey they would wish to take up. Your dragon brethren, that is. And this Yoon of yours. For I find I would very much like to meet them. All of them.”

Ki-Ja does not answer straightaway. “I’ve already extended an invitation to them all to come to our village. So perhaps they will come before the winter frost sets in and makes travel highly improbable.”

He does not say that he plans on traveling back there himself. I cannot help but wonder why. Was it because he thought his place was set to remain within this village now that he had returned?

Oh. The sudden realization dawns on me as I reach for my mug of tea. Perhaps he thought it would be impolite to Hae-Ran to suddenly vacate the village so quickly after their marriage and possibly fathering a child. That would seem reason enough, after all. It was the reason he had come back, wasn’t it?

“It’ll be a day full of celebration whenever it occurs.” I reassure him. “For I know the village will accept them all with open arms. And you, of course, will be delighted to see them yet again.”

“Yes.” His broken agreement shatters my heart. The poor man. I had been right to think that he missed them painfully. And no amount of happiness- not even marrying Hae-Ran- would eradicate it. “I find myself anxiously anticipating their arrival with each moment that passes.”

There is nothing I can really say in response to that- no words I can offer to set his mind at ease. When they came- if they came- perhaps his soul might finally have its long awaited peace. For if not, it would be a long winter. One I feared might madden him to reach its end if the other warriors did not travel before the beginning of the cruelly cold season these mountains were known to have.

We sit for some time, drinking or eating in silence. Ki-Ja now looks outside of the room, his gaze lost in a world that lies far beyond it. He eats absentmindedly at the rice square in his hold, though I am sure he does not register its taste nor perhaps the fact that he is even consuming it in the slightest. I can only imagine the visions that captivated him as my own is full of him.

A slight movement draws my attention back to the table, and I see a small field worm inching at a tediously slow pace near Ki-Ja who still remains in another world. Leaning forward, I intend to scoop the bug into my hold and return it outdoors where it belonged. My sudden movement, however, draws the man sharply back to reality, sending us to barely avoid bashing skulls as he suddenly jerked forward too.

“Y-you startled me.” He stammers, his whole face growing red as I hover nearby. “What are you doing?”

I point a finger to the worm still inching in his direction. “Stay still.” I scoop the wriggling insect into my palm and hurry it away to the window. There’s a mild look of horror on his face when I return that confuses me. “There. That’s all I intended to do.”

“Thank you.” He breathes a heavy sigh of relief now. “I am not fond of insects.”

I tilt my head to look at him curiously. “Why? What have they ever done to you?”

“Nothing, per say, other than exist.” He shudders. “All those little legs, and the beady eyes, and the… the everything about them, honestly, unsettles me. Believe it or not, for some time, I was actually very afraid of them.”

I cannot help but giggle. “You? The great and mighty White Dragon warrior, afraid of a mere insect? Oh Ki-Ja.” My laughter grows, and I politely mute it by cupping my hands around my mouth. “I-I’m sorry to sound so amused but… it is so paradoxical!”

He just shakes his head in exasperation. “Illogical as it may be, such a thing is the truth. Though I suppose in retrospect it does sound a bit insane.” He begins to laugh himself. “I suppose the insect is the one with the justifiable terror in those scenarios.”

“Indeed.”

He smiles as my laughter continues. “I’m sure if Granny was here, she’d say there was nothing wrong with me. Believe it or not, she was the one who scoured the halls day and night to ensure that they were free of insects. As irrational a fear as it might have been, she always took extra precaution to safeguard my well-being. Sometimes I know she overstepped her boundaries to do just that, but I don’t think I would have preferred it any other way.”

The humor dies away as the heartache gently ebbs in to take its place. All I can see now is images of times long passed with Grandmother. How she’d scold any village man who got too close to me or how she’d tut over my malnourished frame slow to get the nutrients it needed. No task was too great for her to complete on my behalf. And that selfless love she offered to me without ever asking for anything in return was the greatest gift I had or ever would receive while I had life.

“Her love simply knew no bounds.” I remind him with a sad smile. “At the end of the day, her single greatest desire was ensuring that she had cared for everyone in any and every possible manner. Coddling as it might have been at times, nit-picky as she might have acted, she did it all for someone else’s betterment. I gained so much because of her. I am only sorry that I will never be able to repay this weighty debt owed to her. I am who I am today because of her care and involvement in my life.”

Oh, the weight in those eyes of his. In an instant, I understood his connection to these sentiments I uttered without him having to say a single word himself. For he too had been touched by this very same woman in a manner similar to my own.

“Yes.” He answers all the same, somber and saddened that he too was in concurrence with it. “We are kindred souls, you and I. Do you not agree?”

I nod slowly. “Yes. I think so too.”

The depth of our connection keeps us both quietly wrapped in thought for some time. Then Ki-Ja, polite and prompt as he was, reminds me that it would be dark soon. And understanding that there was nothing left to do and nothing left to say, I nod my agreement and make a quiet statement to excuse myself.

He follows me to the door and stops me from exiting with a calm call of my name.

“I know I’ve perhaps uttered it too many times this afternoon for it to have meaning anymore,” He says when I turn. “But thank you. Honestly and truly, words cannot express my thanks to you for our time spent together today.”

I’m flustered immensely by all of the gratitude he expressed time and time again. “P-please. There’s no need for thanks. Surely after all you’ve done for me, it is only natural for me to wish to reciprocate.”

He smiles gently at me. “I suppose so. Enjoy the rest of your evening, Yojeong. Until we next meet.”

That night I lay in bed, calmed with a peace I knew held no bounds. Tonight, there would be no more nightmares on this man’s behalf. Happy to have finally be of help to someone- especially someone like him, who constantly seemed to be coming to everyone else’s aid instead of the opposite- I drift into a contented sleep in my own bed for the first time in weeks.


	7. Reject;Resist

A tangible chill falls over the entire village.

And unfortunately, it is not from the incoming winter weather almost at our doorstep.

I don’t know when I become acutely aware of it, but when I do, I begin to be hyper-fixated on this altered atmosphere. There’s this very heavy pause or silence that fills the air throughout the village whenever I return from my foraging. Uncomfortable with the feeling that it might have something to do with me, I attempt to ignore it, writing it off as an effect of the incoming winter solstice and the great amount of change the village would see in its structure thanks to it. There was much work to be done to ready the influx of new couples alongside safeguard the village for the terrible cold that would fill this place for many months. Everyone was weary from exhaustion and perhaps not in the best of spirits.

Even Hae-Ran, who I assumed would show little to no change in her countenance during these crucial moments, proves me wrong. She seems distracted- agitated. And what’s worse is that I cannot ask her what plagues her enough to put her mind at ease. These days I see less and less of her than ever. For the most part she remains in her own world and I my own.

Ki-Ja seems to be the only person unaffected by this strange situation and offers me every kindness as he always did. If our paths happened to cross, he would go out of his way to safely see me to wherever it was I was headed. He would make talk I usually just listened to, glad that to at least one person here, my presence hadn’t come to be forgotten.

He and Hae-Ran appear outside of our hut one day very near the solstice deep in conversation. I’d heard the rise and fall of their voices from outside the heavy wooden door that barred the cold from seeping into the small home we inhabited and cracked it open a fraction, hoping that they’d both come to have some tea or spend some times indoors with me included. But oblivious, they remained lost in their own world. Ki-Ja looks oddly serious. I could not see Hae-Ran’s expression as she had her back turned to me, but I’m sure hers mirrored his own.

Afraid to be seen eavesdropping on a conversation that was undeniably private, I shut the door and pad back to my room. Hae-Ran comes inside some time later and goes straight to her room. I step outside my own to see hers darkened with no lit candle and wonder if she was alright. It isn’t until late that evening- many hours after she’s brought me my dinner in silence and retreated back to her room with her own- that I hear her sobbing with some force.

Despite being unable to sleep, I do not leave my room to comfort her. Worried, I hoped her sudden bout of sadness was just a reaction from the accumulation of stress her shoulders had carried for far too long. Too weary to sleep, she must have been so plagued by exhaustion that she was upset to not find her body able to rest when it so desperately desired it.

The next day, I head out to the forest but find myself too worried on my friend’s behalf to manage more than a few hours of foraging. She’d already dressed and departed when I wake myself a little after dawn, which while seemingly not out of the norm, reassured me that she’d gotten little to no sleep herself. And afraid that she’d overwork herself into a spell of sickness so soon before her day of engagement, I hurry back to the village in hopes of locating her and helping her with any tasks she might have to complete.

I arrive to find practically the whole population of village women in a far corner of the communal grounds unearthing what appeared to be the fermenting radishes and other preserved foods we’d buried beneath the earth over the spring and summer months for use in the cold season. My eyes scan the small clusters of women all dressed in their similar hued homespun gowns and find that Hei-Ran is in a far corner with some other women. A great ache fills my chest as I see that she is dabbing at her eyes, looking more miserable than I’d ever seen her look in the three years I’d been in this village, while one of the women is holding her in consolation.

There’s a very tangible blast of frost the moment my feet hurry me to her side. Whatever talk they’d all been having comes to a sudden end. All eyes remain fixated on me, unblinking. I instinctively take a step backwards when even Hei-Ran just stares at me, looking like she wanted to halt my lifeblood from flowing with her bare hands.

“What are _you_ doing here?” One of the women gathered not far in the distance snaps at me. I jolt at the violent and accusatory tone before curling my shaking hands into the bodice of my gown. Why was she speaking to me in such a manner? What had I done wrong? “Well? I asked you a question!”

I swallow hard and blow a shaky stream of breath from out of my nostrils. “I-I’m sorry. I was worried about Hae-Ran so I came back to check on her.”

They all begin to laugh mockingly at me. My friend just watches with tears still spilling from her eyes. But I know those tears are not meant for me in these moments. If anything, they are because of me in some form or fashion.

The same woman who just finished talking sneers at me. “Well isn’t this the most humorous thing I’ve heard all week! You, worried about Hae-Ran? After all you’ve done, I find that very hard to believe!”

My heart begins to race in fear. Me? What had I done? “I don’t know what it is you’re insinuating.”

“No?” Another one nearby laughs. “That’s alright. Feign innocence all you’d like! We all know the guilt that stains your hands!”

“Hae-Ran?” I look only at my friend now, who dabs at her eyes that are now focused on her feet. “What are they talking about?”

Her lips press together into a wobbling grimace. After a moment, she finds the strength to lift her gaze and holds that vehement look unblinking over me. “How could you do this to me, Yojeong? How could you dare steal Ki-Ja’s affection from me when you knew how much I loved him?”

The whole world suddenly goes silent.

I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.

Me, purposefully attempt to glean Ki-Ja’s affection? Was she out of her mind? I had never desired it nor had he ever acted in a manner to bestow it upon me either! He and I were just kindred spirits. Ones linked in friendship and nothing more.

“There has to be some kind of misunderstanding.” I plead with the women who all seem to flock closer to Hei-Ran and farther away from me. “I don’t love Ki-Ja. And he most assuredly doesn’t love me.”

One snorts. “Oh no? Then how do you explain all the spottings of the two of you alone, hm? You, who apparently had been so abused and wary of men now suddenly appearing beside one constantly? Even to the point that you accepted being asked to take tea in private? Something is amiss. And it is you, Yojeong. You are the mischievous culprit behind it all.”

The other women start murmuring various agreements. Hae-Ran just weeps on in silence, looking like her heart was breaking endlessly within her chest. My own heart has fallen silent. I was to blame for her tears? Me?

And worst of all, I couldn’t defend myself without laying my soul bear of all its hurts. For I had purposefully sought out Ki-Ja. But not for the reasons these women so blatantly accused me of.

That beautiful good luck charm I had made for him harbored such a terrible tragedy in its wake.

“This is why we always abided by the rules to never let outsiders in!” Someone in the background shouts. “They’ll take and take what is rightfully ours with no consideration to anyone but themselves. We lived isolated all this time for good reason. And this harlot in our midst embodies every reason why.”

The women grow in volume now. Some throw taunts for me to vacate this place and never come back. Others bellow colorful slurs. Hae-Ran says nothing, though her eyes speak volumes as they land on me.

_Get out_. That fiery look would have burned me to ash where I stood had she the ability to do so. _I never want to see you again_.

Tears blur my vision, but I will not cry. No matter what I said, she would not believe me. No one would. This place had finally forsaken me, just like I knew it would. I had finally outstayed my welcome.

“Then I’ll go.” I raise my voice and look at all the women. “If that will put everyone’s minds at ease, I’ll leave this village and never come back. I never meant to hurt you, Hae-Ran.” I can tell by the look on her face that she doesn’t believe me. “I only had your happiness in mind. Honestly and truly, you are like a sister to me. Do you really think… I’d sully our bond over some man? Even a man like Ki-Ja?”

Hae-Ran says nothing, her expression blank. It seemed I was simply spouting words that filled the air and held no meaning. She would never believe me innocent. No one in this place would.

The women are all cajoling me to leave now. I turn on my heel, feeling the weight of their rejection, and run like my life depended on it. The only thing that fills my head are words of apology. Words I offer to Grandmother- who’s grave I’d never visit again- and to Ki-Ja too, who I’d never get to say goodbye to either.

I stumble through the forest, lost in a dizzying wave of thoughts. Alone. I really was alone. My hand reaches down to feel at my satchel, giving me a moment’s relief. At least I had a few things to see myself through in this place. But did I want to wander endlessly through the woods far off from the village? What other options did I have? I supposed I could go back down the mountain paths to my old home. No; a terrible queasiness unsettles me at the thought. They would have far too many questions about where I’d gone in the years I’d been missing and what to do with me now that I’d returned. As much as this village had hurt me, I would never reveal their location even if it would be equally justifiable to do so.

Defeat overtakes me as the sky darkens through the break in the forest canopy above my head. Could I really survive on my own? It was late into the autumn season with winter nipping at its heels. There would be little to forage for soon. And no real way to keep out the chill that would be constant. Was it best just to accept death was all that awaited me in this place? Why not just take such a matter into my own hands now and see myself to the heavens sooner than later if that’s all that awaited me?

My stomach turns over on itself several times. No. I had promised Grandmother that I would not purposefully seek to end my own life again as I had the day that had brought me to their village instead. If there was one thing I could do right by, it was honoring her wishes.

The darkened sky is soon accompanied by a wailing wind. I rub at my arms as I continue my trek higher and higher into the mountains that led seemingly nowhere. It would be night soon. I should stop somewhere, build a small fire, and have a little warmth to lull myself off to sleep if I could afford it.

By the time I begrudgingly stop, a cold rain’s begun to fall with some force in the woods. It was too damp to start a fire. Cold, hungry, and weary, I find a larger tree and huddle against its trunk. I am scared. Scared of what was to become of me. Scared of what Fate had planned.

But more than anything, I am so full of sorrow that the emotion feels immeasurable.

“I’m so sorry, Hae-Ran.” I cradle my head in my hands and lament aloud as the storm wailed on in my stead. “I’m so sorry, Ki-Ja. All I wanted was for you both to be happy forever. Why? How did I ruin it all? I didn’t mean to do this. Any of this. Please forgive me.”

 

I fall into a fitful sleep deep into the night. The storm kept on for some time, slowly diminishing until no trace of it remained saved for the strewn, soaked leaves that littered the forest floor. For hours I’d just sat and replayed everything that had happened, wishing so desperately that I could have changed the way I had ever interacted with Ki-Ja while simultaneously holding onto a frail hope that there was some way to make it all right once more.

But there’s no one in the forest here with me. Well, no one human at least. Birds take up their dawn songs in the trees and small creatures rustle through the fallen foliage all around me, scavenging for food sure to be nonexistent once the frost set in. If I was wise, I’d follow their example and find something safe to consume myself. But weighed down by a despondent depression, I really had no care to expend energy on foraging for food I knew I wouldn’t feel inclined to eat.

Instead I set my mind to trekking farther up the mountain. The terrain here is steep- much steeper in elevation than the paths I was used to traversing around the village. And with the slickness the rain from the night before had added to the terrain, it made the upward climb a true feat of strength.

Stubbornly I plow ahead, trying to clear my thoughts of anything but observing the world around me. Best not to think about the dens of carnivorous beasts who made the rocky crags nearby their homes or poisonous vipers who slithered across these paths just like I was. The fact that I would be doing nothing but adding distance between myself and any human settlement by continuing in this direction was all that mattered.

I grow weary. My limbs are taxed by the strain of perpetually climbing upwards and my breathing shortens to balance the exertion. At times, I lose my footing and scramble to keep myself on the path. Every time that I do, I shudder in terror at the thought of tumbling down the steep mountainside into the unknown. Perhaps even to my death.

But I stumble upwards with my teeth gritted and muscles shaking, reminding myself that the tremors and aches were only temporary. Traveling was the only thing I could do at this moment. When hunger beckoned me, I would eat. When night fell, I would stop.

Distance. I grimace that word through bloodied lips as I skirt higher in elevation through the mountain paths growing exceedingly dangerous with each meter high I trekked. The farther I was from the village, the smaller any chance to be found would be. It was best to leave them be. Let them all go back to their peaceful cycle that had once remained uninterrupted before I ever came into their midst. Let Ki-Ja and Hae-Ran find happiness. Let the stain of my influence over them both die away quickly so that I’d fall forgotten, just like the leaves that fell from the boughs bending down over me in these moments.

A stubborn plea to return wells up from time to time, but I do not heed its call. There was nothing to return to. No one to welcome me home. Ki-Ja’s kind face flits across my thoughts from time to time and I feel the painful squeeze of my aching heart quite violently in those moments. I could not help but wonder what had been said to him upon my departure. Had he been upset? Worried? Saddened? Of what I knew of his character, it was hard to think that he would be apathetic in any manner.

Still, this was right for us all. He and Hae-Ran needed each other. Whatever small friendship the two of us had shared had reached its intended end. I did not hold anything against him, nor her either. I hoped Fate would be kind to them both for all they had done for me. I only hoped it would spare me its own wrath I’d subtly feared had been silently lying in wait since the day I’d stumbled into this forest following my father’s death.

The terrain steepens even greater. My breath is shallow and uneven. Every muscle in my limbs beg for rest, but I cannot stop. I will not.

The path doubles then triples in front of my eyes. I blink hard, but it is too late. My foot slicks off the path, unable to steady itself. I slip sideways, reach blindly for something to anchor me and-


	8. Manage; Mend

What became of my life felt as if I had been trapped in a never-ending nightmare.

For while the horror of a nightmare lasted only one night, mine would last for all of eternity.

I heard what happened to me in bits and pieces following my rescue and return to the village from various people. That last day in the forest, I’d fallen from some height and hit my head upon impact on a felled tree half-rotting where it lay. It had caused a great swelling in my head. One, that in turn damaged its connections to my body. For now I had tremors that would not cease and a tongue that could not speak with stumbling either.

All in all, they say that I am very lucky. That had the fall been any higher, or my impact been with any other object, I would have been dead before anyone could chance upon me. I do not think that I am fortuitous myself. For surely if they themselves knew how terrible it was to live with these new handicaps, they would not think it any blessing at all.

I am miserable. Miserable from stumbling and stuttering when I’d once been able to walk and talk without qualm. Angry and frustrated that every task taxed me to the point that I could barely hold a mug with ease or do anything of my own strength, I wailed to no end for a majority of the winter months.

But the real source of my misery was more than what had happened to me. It was had happened in the village because of me.

From what I’d gathered, Hae-Ran had run to Ki-Ja the night following my departure and wept that she and the other women had driven me out. He swiftly gathered men from the village and scoured the forest for many hours until they chanced upon the spot where I’d fallen. They’d all thought me dead.

Ki-Ja had been inconsolably irate. Apparently upon their return to the village with me, he’d gathered the whole community together and roared in rage unlike any they’d ever seen him have about their shameful behavior towards me and his disgust for their close-minded ways. He ordered that no one would be allowed to marry on the winter solstice. Instead, he made them all trek to the graves of their ancestors that day and beg forgiveness for what they’d done.

I find myself unable to see the man acting in such a manner. For every moment he spent with me, he was as gentle and cautious as one was with a baby bird. There were no harsh words. No anger ever written on his features. Just patience without cease and a bevy of soothing words. He worked magic no bandages or balms ever could.

Hae-Ran stays away. Whether it is of her own accord, or perhaps Ki-Ja’s, I found I couldn’t really ask. Although I now resided in a room within his home, we didn’t converse often, if at all. Speaking had become a luxury for me; I only did it when it was absolutely necessary. Hearing myself stumble over a syllable or even fail to form a word drove me mad. Gods only know how tedious it must have been to anyone who was stuck listening to me all the while.

The healer tries to coax me along into thinking about managing my future with these disabilities sure to be permanent. As hard as it was to move my muscles with these tremors wracking them endlessly, I’d grow weak without working them. I attempt small walks around the residence. I flex my fingers and toes in little repetitive exercises at various intervals in the day. Every day, I see more of what I’d lost than the day before. I was wondering what good I’d be to anyone now that I could not live on my own strength.

Her only suggestion to really upset me comes when talking about maintaining my hygiene. With how taxing it was to already clean myself in the most basic ways, she thought it might be a wise idea to cut my hair down to a shorter length so it would be more manageable to brush or wash. I’d been emotional following our discussion on the whole topic and wept with my head cradled in Ki-Ja’s lap when he came to see me upon the healer’s departure. It wasn’t so much that I hated the thought of cutting my hair. It was just that this long mane had remained untouched through all the tragedies I’d seen. To cut it was something much more than a simple act of putting a blade to those long tendrils.

Ki-Ja understands that I am very attached to my hair and does not allow anyone to cut it- not even a centimeter. Every morning, he comes in and ties it securely under a ribbon for me. Every evening he brushes out what I cannot. All of this he does in silence. Not a word is spoken until he is finished and his prompt farewell alerts me that he is leaving.      

There is so much heartache. Too much. For myself, for Ki-Ja, for everyone. It is a harsh winter. One that is as cruel as ever. Sickness wracks the village. Some elderly die. Even some children. The healer comes less and less. I am not at all upset by her scarce presence. My suffering, while long-term, was not life-threatening. Her expertise was needed elsewhere to save those whose sufferings were.

I can see it in Ki-Ja’s eyes as he begins to take the place of the healer in my every day routine. The hollowness. Just like this cold season we were trapped in, he seemed to have died inside. I know it is in some part due to me. I only dread it is not only on my behalf that he suffers to this degree.

I have grown very fond of him. More fond than I had been before this whole tragic turn of events occurred. While I had been speaking the truth to Hae-Ran that last day I had been cornered in the village, I found myself not being able to believe those words anymore. For I really did love Ki-Ja now in a manner I had not before. But burdened by the pain that I’d caused him so much sadness, I warned myself that it was best if he never knew it himself.

We begin taking walks outdoors. While short in time and distance, I enjoy the snowy landscapes and gray skies beyond belief. Ki-Ja always steadies me- at first, it had just been an arm politely offered for me to take. Now he wrapped an arm around me almost instinctively- and tailors the trek we take based on how well I’m feeling. Sometimes we just stand still, not far from the hall, snuggled close in silence.

I know how badly he must ache for the others. For winter had fallen, and there would be no chance of seeing them until some time into spring. If they came. When they came. I know he must be as equally hopeful on the topic of their potential visit as he was anxious that it would ever occur.

“S-s-sky tribe.” I force out the trembling words one day when we’ve paused our walk to do a little sight-seeing. “S-s-spring. You g-g-g-go.”

He looks down at me and gives a sad smile. “Let us wait to see how the spring season goes and be patient. Then, if they do not come, we will go to them in the summer.”

I tilt my head in confusion. We? What did he mean?

“What?” His blue eyes widen a fraction. “Do you not wish to come with me? I remember at one time you said you wished to meet them all. Is such a thing no longer the case?”

I shrug and gesture with shaking hands to myself. Why burden his journeys with an invalid such as myself? Besides, I was not so sure I wanted the sympathy of a stranger for being the way that I was now. After all, I was perfectly sound in mind and spirit. Proving it outwardly was just the problem.

“Don’t worry too much about your tremors.” He rubs his hand encouragingly across my back. “We will take the journey as slow as it needs to be to safeguard your health. And do not worry about your voice either. For no one there would dare judge nor mock you for it. If I remember correctly, I do not think that you would be the only one in the tribe with such an ailment. But I will not force you to go if that is not what you wish. Just ponder my offer for some time, hm?”

I nod slowly and press my face into the crook of his neck. He draws in closer, leaning his head slightly against my own, and we just stand there like that for a short while. I know in those moments he is full of yearning for many things beyond his grasp. I only wished that somehow, I could give him everything he so desired.

An ache to see Grandmother fills my chest a few days later, and I stumble over speaking my request to go to her grave to Ki-Ja one night when he comes in to brush my hair before bed. I’m afraid that due to my health that had seen little improvement in the areas of my mobility he would be forced to decline my plea. But he surprises me by quietly acquiescing that so long as the weather was bearable at midday when it was warmest, the two of us would go visit her grave together.

I turn and hug him tight, thankful that he had agreed when I knew he had every right not to. He completes the embrace not long afterwards and presses his lips to the top of my head. We sit in silence for a short while following. Then polite as always, Ki-Ja murmurs that he couldn’t linger any longer and wishes me a pleasant night of sleep.

Just like he promised, the two of us set off across the sleepy village nestled deep in a blanket of snow around midday. Ki-Ja had tutted nervously like a new mother over me the entire morning, worried that I wasn’t dressed warmly enough or that I would overexert myself with the prolonged time we’d be spending outdoors in comparison to our usual excursions. I just stand and let him fuss, knowing that regardless of any reassuring words or gestures I might have made, he would not have worried all the same.

We walk hand in hand down the undiscernible paths towards Grandmother’s grave. My tremors had not seemed so bad today while I remained indoors, but here exposed to the elements, the cold seemed to seep deep into my bones and send me shaking with some force. I grit my teeth and take step by shaking step forward, unwilling to give in to the tremor’s leeching power draining what small strength I had at my disposal.

Ki-Ja halts us both after he’s watched me struggle in silence for another meter or two. “This is too much for you to do in your own strength.” He says while watching my breath come out in quick puffs between us. I furrow my brow, frustrated that he had noticed as easily as I dreaded he would, but say nothing. After a moment, he dips down into the snow and gestures for me to wrap my arms from around the back of his neck. “I’ll carry for the rest of the way. Come along, Yojeong. It’s best not to dawdle in this cold.”

He walks evenly even with my added weight taken into consideration- a statement I knew was only true thanks to the strength of his dragon arm. The view is very nice from here. So is his warmth. I do not mind in the slightest that he has both of his arms supporting me beneath my backside, although he is extremely apologetic with every slight bump or touch he might have given accidently while doing so.

Side by side, we stand praying over Grandmother’s grave. It’s much too frigid to prostrate ourselves into the snow, though I gladly would have done it myself regardless of the weather. My love for this woman knew no bounds. She still meant the world to me despite her death now over one year ago.

In silence, I have a conversation with her like I always did when I visited the sight where she was laid to rest. I talk about the fear and frustrations this abrupt change in my health had taken. I talk to her about my worries for the future and guidance for what I should do to ensure I was as little a burden on anyone as I possibly could be in such a state. But most of all, I talk of Ki-Ja and beg for her to keep a close watch over him. That she and the rest of his ancestors would bless him without cease for all he had done for this country and me in particular because I knew he would never ask for such a thing himself.

As wrong as it was, I even admit to her that I loved him. And that while I knew she could not physically bestow a blessing on me to remain beside him, I still hoped that her essence in the heavens would not be unsettled by my unending admiration for him. I asked for wisdom about whether these feelings were mine to cherish or something that was best for us both not to nurture. For I would do anything to have this man safeguarded in any and every manner, even if it did me harm in doing so.

Ki-Ja is still deep in prayer when I am finished with my own, and respectfully, I watch him do so until he is finished. He immediately turns to look at me when his eyes open, and smiling lightly, he smooths a hand over my back. I lean my head against him as he draws me in closer, happy in these quiet moments where his touch soothed me unlike anything else.

“Excuse me...”

We both turn at the hesitant statement uttered not far in the distance from where we stood. I pull my head off of Ki-Ja’s shoulder and soon remove myself out of his hold when Hae-Ran’s vaguely familiar figure registers a few meters away. For while the woman standing some way from us may have held similar features to that of my once beloved friend, there were far too many subtle changes to believe it really her until I examine her again. There is a tightness in my chest when I realize it really is her. For she looked absolutely horrid. Worn to the bone and aged with an exhaustion that looked as unnatural as it must have been unhealthy, the woman I had not seen in several months looks like a ghost of her former self.

“Hae-Ran.” Polite as Ki-Ja might have been, there is an edge of warning to his voice. My stomach drops. I was right to assume there had been discord between them all this time. All because of me. “Can we help you with something?”

She looks at me, then glances down at her feet, looking uncharacteristically nervous for a woman who had once been anything but. My heart bleeds. Oh great gods above. What had become of her too? Was I the reason why she had grown so thin? So lifeless?

“Pardon me, Lord Ki-Ja, but I just wanted to let you know I have a roaring fire in my hut nearby. I’ll vacate it for a short while. Please, use it to warm yourself and Yojeong before you continue on. I’ll send someone by with some tea and freshly prepared food for you too.”

I stumble down the path, unable to let this terrible cycle of hurt continue for her. She startles when I draw near, sobbing something to me that is half-mangled by her wails. When I throw my shaking arms around her and hug her tight, her sobs grow. After a few moments, she hugs me back with just as much force and we weep all the things we’d kept inside to one another without cease.

I pull away and attempt to wipe the tears still pooling in her beautiful blue eyes with my trembling fingers. She takes my hands in hers, half-crying, half-laughing, and presses a kiss to each of my palms. I hug her neck tight once more, hoping that my actions continuously reassured her that there were no festering feelings on my behalf. And when she hugs me again, I know she is glad for this forgiveness I doubted she expected to be given after all this time.

“Some tea would be wonderful, Hae-Ran.” I look over my shoulder to see Ki-Ja smiling at the pair of us. “But only if you’ll join us, that is. It would be a shame to part ways with you so soon, do you not think so, Yojeong?”

I take hold of her hands and nod deeply.

Hae-Ran lets out a shaking laugh. “If that is what you wish I… I cannot say no.”

The three of us walk along in silence. Hae-Ran seems unwilling to let me go and steadies me with her own strength as I stumble through the snow like a child half my age. I am glad to have her near again. It felt as if a piece of my broken heart had suddenly returned to its rightful place in my chest with her reappearance.

We sit around the hearth fire in the hut she and I once inhabited together. She fusses over me just as badly as Ki-Ja does and won’t sit still until she’s absolutely certain that I could want for nothing. She’s filled my mug without a comment about the mess I made attempting to pick it up or place it back down on the ground before my sitting form. And worried that the heat of the fire wasn’t warm enough, she even ventures into her room to grab a quilt, which she drapes over my shoulders like a second cloak. I just smile or squeeze her arm in thanks for it all. She’d always been too kind to me.

I lift a hand to her cheeks, and then down to her chest, hoping it was clear that I was worried about her health. While the whitewashed scenery had made her look very pale and ill, she still didn’t have a better constitution now that the heat of the hearth was warming us all. She presses her lips into a thin smile, knowing I was too perceptive to see her as she wished to appear in her words.

“I’ll have to agree with Yojeong. You look very ill indeed.” Ki-Ja comments with some friendly concern as she sets another pot of tea to boil above the flames we’ve just stoked back to full strength. “Have you had Healer Chin-Sun come to examine you? For you truly look to be in less than sound health.”

Hae-Ran averts her gaze to the empty spot to her left. “There’s no need to worry on my behalf. I’m not ill.”

I mime a gesture asking her about her sleeping and eating habits. Her lips wobble, and she looks like she is going to cry again. I take her hands into my own and give them a soft squeeze. Her gaze falls on our clasped hands, then slowly lifts it to peer hesitantly at my face. 

“Why?” She croaks the word like it’s a painful thing to utter. “Why are you both being so kind to me? I-I am the one who did this to you, Yojeong.” Tears begin to seep from her eyes. “You should hate me. I hate myself. You were like family to me and yet I… I almost sent you to your grave.”

I coo in alarm that she believed such a thing. Hae-Ran had no guilt in what had happened to me. She did not tell me to leave the village or climb those rain-slicked mountain paths. I chose to make those decisions myself. I was the one who should be apologizing, not her.

“N-no g-g-guilt.” As laborious as it was to form each syllable, I know I must speak my feelings out loud for her to hear and understand. “I am-m s-s-s-s-sorry. Y-you are s-s-s-s-sad. I d-d-did this t-t-to y-you.”

“I think you both must relieve yourself of the heavy blame you place on your own shoulders.” Ki-Ja consoles us as Hei-Ran quiets her tears. “It is not right to continue this cycle of guilt any longer. Not for yourself nor for each other either. I think it is best we accept that was has happened has happened and cannot be changed. For there has been enough heartache. Let us try to be happy while we can.”

I nod enthusiastically in concurrence with what he’s just said. Worrying and weeping about could have been would only hinder us from going forward. It had halted me for so long in regards to accepting my painful past. I no longer wanted to live that way. Nor did I wish for that mindset to imprison anyone else- especially anyone I loved.

I undo my hold on one of Hei-Ran’s hands to instead place it on one of Ki-Ja’s. We all needed to move forward- together. No more guilt. No more bickering. We had all suffered enough.

Hei-Ran laughs in between the last of her tears. Ki-Ja simply hums an amused agreement to my silent sentiment. I give their hands a tight squeeze. So long as I had them both back in my midst, I’d never want for anything ever again.

The exhaustion of exerting myself in the last few hours finally bears down on me, and I am weary to the bone. Warmed by the fire and the quilt layered over my clothing, my body relaxes and grows heavy in preparation to sleep. Ki-Ja and Hae-Ran sit in silence now, and the quietness filling the hut lulls me to close my eyes and recline my head on the man’s arm nearby.

“She is very tired.” Ki-Ja says to Hae-Ran as if she could not see for herself the sleepy state I was in. “It is best if we return to our hall now. Chin-Sun had said it best to let her body have as much rest as it needs at times like this.”

“But of course.” I crack an eye open to see Hae-ran gathering our things. “You should go home before it gets any later. More snow is coming in this evening. It is best to have everyone safely indoors prior to its arrival.”

“Please be sure the villagers are equipped with enough dry wood and provisions to see them through until morning.” Ki-ja moves to scoop me in his arms with little resistance from me. I nestled my head against his chest as he holds me against his torso this time like I was some overgrown babe and not a woman of nineteen years. “If any huts have been damaged or have any problems securing their own heat, send the villagers to my hall straightaway. I will not let anyone else succumb to sickness or death this winter.”

“As you wish, my lord. I’ll see to it right away.” I smile. Now this was the Hae-Ran I remembered. “Yojeong?” I crack an eye open and look at her as she stands nearby, fidgeting slightly. “Would it be alright if I come by and see you tomorrow?”

My smile grows. “A-anytime. I l-l-love s-s-s-spending t-time w-w-with y-you.”

“You’re welcome at any time, Hae-Ran. Our hall is always open to you.” Ki-Ja extends a free invitation with genuine hospitality. “We’ll see you sometime tomorrow then. Please keep safe and warm yourself during this incoming snowfall. Your wellbeing matters very dearly to us.”

“I will.” She replies without hesitation. “Please enjoy the rest of your day.”

Back at our hall, Ki-Ja shoos the few servants he kept away and sees me safely to bed himself. He takes off my cloak and boots before tucking me under the thick blanket stuffed with feathers with patient efficiency. There is a twinkle in his eyes that I adore beyond words. It felt like some part of him had been revitalized today. I only hoped it wouldn’t last temporarily.

“You look happy.” He comments as I turn on my side in his direction and sigh happily. “Good. I could never ask for more. Get a little rest, Yojeong. We’ll have dinner together when you wake.”

I nod slowly. “K-Ki-Ja?”

“Hm? What is it?”

“T-thank y-y-you.”

“Whatever are you thanking me for? I’ve done nothing to deserve it.”

I shake my head slowly and pull the blanket up to my chin with my shaking hands. He was wrong. There was far too much to thank him for. More than I knew he could even perceive.

I extend a hand from beneath the blanket and extend it out to him. Smiling, he takes it into his sole human one and lifts it to his lips. I giggle. I’d simply wanted him to hold it. But I wasn’t one to complain. Any affection he wanted to shower me with would never be scoffed at.

“Close your eyes and sleep a short while.” He offers while still holding tight to me. “I’ll stay here with you until you’re contently slumbering.”

And he does. Until the moment my weary body finally succumbs to its own exhaustion, Ki-Ja remains just beside me, holding my hand, keeping his word to me as he always had and I hoped always would.

 


	9. Unions to Reunions

Winter makes way for spring.

And like the reborn earth, I too rejoice in the life that had been returned to my possession.

The tremors and stutters do not leave- I understood such a thing could not be, no matter how deeply I might have secretly wished for it to be so- but I grow use to completing my daily tasks with them taken in full consideration. It is not to say that there are not days when I am withdrawn or frustrated to tears by their hindrances, but for the most part, I accept that they are as much a part of me as anything else and do not let them dampen my mood or shape my mentality if I could otherwise afford it.

Steadily shaped by a pattern, my days come and go without much difference to their schedule. While it was comforting to know no new stressors could come and hinder my steadily gaining attempts at rehabilitation, I try to keep myself optimistic and curious. There was much to see on our walks outdoors. Things to touch or grab or hold that I could ponder and cherish all the while grateful that I still had the ability to do so when that fall that could have been fatal or paralyzed me in any manner possible. I am happy. Content. There was life to be had in abundance. I simply had to keep my mind and spirit open for such a thing to be true.

Hae-Ran and Ki-Ja are my great encouragers and strongest supporters. They never make a fuss or grumble about the duties they exchange to manage my care. And while at times I feel extremely guilty that they had to now shape their entire lives around me, neither of them will accept an apology if I get to the point of uttering one. The two have always gotten along well. And despite the rocky shift that had come between them at one time, I was happy to see that there was no lingering discord between them. Their mutual desire to care for me seemed to keep any negativity at bay.

Ki-Ja warms with the weather, though only slightly. I know he is worried. Worried for me. Worried for this village. Worried for the other dragon warriors who had yet to come visit despite his great desire to reunite with them. I attempt to be as consoling and optimistic as I can to bolster his spirits, but he would always be uneasy until this reunion between them occurred.

 I’m startled immensely one afternoon while walking with Hae-Ran. Ki-Ja had come hurrying down from the village onto forest trail towards us, approaching with some speed, and scoops me into his arms with some energy as our paths converge. My laughter rings in the trees as he spins me around, shouting something with unbridled delight that becomes drowned out by my growing giggles.

“They’re coming.” He smiles at me once he’s safely placed my feet back on the ground. I cock my head, a little confused as to who he was referring to. “My brothers. I can feel their presences. They’re coming here to our village.”

I gasp in amazement before hugging him tight. My elation is insatiable. Oh praise the heavens! They were coming. These men who meant more than the world to him were journeying to our village all for his sake.

The whole village is in an elated uproar at the thought of all four dragon warriors within our walls. It was a sight never before seen. Not once. Apparently, the Yellow Dragon warrior had come over the various cycles of rebirth to each warrior respectively, but never had each present warrior united here nor anywhere else before their pledge to Yona. It was a momentous occasion. One I felt weighed more in its significance to Ki-Ja than in any other manner.

“Yojeong.” He captures both of my hands softly many days later as we stop to drink in the birdsong filling the forest. We were anticipating the warrior’s arrival in two days, if not a little longer by his uncanny calculations as to where their presences now were. “I have something to ask you.”

I nod, reassuring him that he could ask of me what he needed.

“We will need the room you are occupying to give to our guests. I just…” He looks away, his expression somewhere between nervous and uncomfortable. “I just wished to give you your options for rooming, knowing this, and have you give me your decision as to what you think is best for you.”

I nod a little more slowly, now very much confused. It wasn’t so much so that they had need of the room I was occupying in his hall- with three warriors and who knows who else might be in addition to their party that Ki-Ja could not sense, they would need every available space aired and ready for use by our incoming guests- but that he was acting so strange about the whole predicament. So I would have to vacate my room. Why did it perturb him?

“Hae-Ran has aired out your old room and said that you are more than welcome to return to staying with her.” He relays the news a little unevenly. I eye him curiously when his cheeks go pink. “Or… I would also like to offer you use of my own room. N-not that I mean anything uncouth by it in doing so!” Now his whole face is red. “I-I mean, yes, we will be sharing a bed, but I would never attempt to disrespect you in any manner. I just hoped… well, worried, I suppose would be more accurate, about you and your wellbeing so I-” He blows a heavy stream of air out of his nostrils, his brows furrowing and his blue eyes constantly shifting to look everywhere but directly at me. “I just wished for you to remain alongside of me. So that I might be the one to care for you. I-If you felt it right for me to do so. If not you do me no injustice by refusing.”

There’s no need for me to mull over which option suited me best. I throw my arms around his neck and hug him with some tightness. This was all I ever wanted and more.

We embrace tenderly for an extended period of time. I can hear Ki-Ja’s rapid heartbeat and feel the flushed warmth radiating off of his skin. I restrain my laughter. The poor man. No wonder he had been so flustered when approaching the topic. Knowing him, he’d overanalyzed everything for decorum’s sake and worried that he would be ruining my reputation by asking such a thing.

“Very well then.” He lifts his gaze to the forest canopy. His face is still very much rogued. “I’ll have your things moved tomorrow then so you may have one night to prepare yourself to this new arrangement.”

The next day, we’re bombarded by villagers as we stroll instead within their midst. I’m perplexed by the sudden gathering of everyone that I’d had not been prepared to see. Even Ki-Ja himself looks befuddled as he takes in the mulling masses. It seemed this sudden meeting between us all hadn’t been predetermined.

“We villagers of the White Dragon village would like to bestow our well wishes for your combined happiness and a blessed union in its wake.” Hae-Ran steps out from amongst the crowd gathered before us, smiling sweetly at he and I who stood hand in hand before her. “May the heavens bless you both for as long as you walk life’s journey together. To our newest couple. To Lord Ki-Ja and Yojeong, his bride!”

The whole crowd echoes both of our names with great emotion and enthusiasm. I look confusedly at everyone gathered around us, then at Hae-Ran, and lastly at Ki-Ja. He blinks slowly for a moment himself, sure to be as startled by the sudden thought of us being considered a man and wife on the cusp of marriage as I was, before his air of confusion clears and he is just smiling so genuinely and openly that I feel the weight of his happiness to have such a connection made. My own heart swells with loving amazement. Man and wife. I… I would gladly hold such a title and remain beside him evermore if he allowed it to be so.

We are given many gifts to congratulate us on this connection we both by far had been the last to anticipate. It is hard for me to accept or hold many of the items graciously crafted on my behalf, but Hae-Ran quickly comes to my aid as Ki-Ja himself is preoccupied with receiving his own half of the bountiful presents being presented to him as well. It is a time of great laughter and joy. Deep in my heart, I treasure every moment of this event and the happiness it wrought upon us all.

We are settled in the village square taking in the mild spring weather together as the villagers took turns recounting the traditions passed down from one generation to the next. They speak of the very first White Dragon warrior and his wife, whose pure and honest-hearted love for one another had begun this village they all called home today. I listen to the historical retellings with my head nestled on Ki-Ja’s shoulder and my arms wrapped around one of his own. Children interject from time to time, breaking the somber storytelling atmosphere with their innocent plights and insatiable energy.

Food and drink are distributed amongst the gathered crowds as darkness falls and we all remain outdoors together, basking in the beautiful weather spring was donned in this very day. Hae-Ran sits to one side of me and assists me with consuming my own portion of everything with such sweet affection. A ringing cheer of Ki-Ja’s name and my own begins in one cluster of citizens until it is echoed by everyone a few moments later. I can only smile and nervously hide myself in my husband’s hold as the tidings of good fortune for us both seemed unending.

After eating and drinking to our fill with the whole community, Ki-Ja excuses us both to return to our hall for a night of some slumber before his dragon brethren’s arrival sure to be tomorrow or soon following. A few lewd comments or playful whistles echoing in the air send us both either laughing nervously or burning bashfully at the implication of what a night would usually hold for a freshly married couple. As we would be sharing a bed together, and certain things usually occurred with such circumstances in mind, I knew it was only natural that such an assumption be made about our actions behind closed doors even if such a thing would not occur.

It is very quiet in the hall. And very dark. Ki-Ja leads me by the hand up to the second level of the structure in silence himself. My tremors grow as the weight of my exhaustion and nervousness both bear down on me. Would he… wish to lay with me tonight? Was such a thing even possible with these shakings that wracked my muscles so? For I was afraid to disappoint him. I was not a beautiful woman with a normal body to freely give like another. Perhaps I could not please him in the ways a man’s body required.

He opens the door to our living space and we step inside. The air holds a scent of burned incense. My whole body heats in mortification. Oh. Were these herbs to… help consummate the mood usually blanketing the first night of marriage? To help make the sight of each other’s naked forms more pleasing to the view or touch as we writhed and ached to pleasure one another?

“D-do not worry yourself with any implications the villagers may have made for our private hours together.” Ki-Ja stammers almost as badly as I do with my handicap as he lets go of my hand. “P-please, make yourself comfortable, Yojeong. I mean you no harm or disrespect. Your body is your own. I have no intentions of acting upon anything uncouth. W-when we lay together- _if_ we lay together,” He hurries to add. “That is for us both to decide. Of our own volition, not the village’s.”

I let out a wobbling sound in agreement. Ki-Ja was so courteous. I should not have expected our evening to go otherwise. While I was sure he must have had such sensual urges rise and fall at times, I was glad he was not the type of man to demand that they be met when another might very well do the same had their places been exchanged. He was so good to me. The tender warmth ripples through my heart and into every part of my being. He always had been.

He’s about as nervous and flustered as a boy on the cusp of manhood as we both set about putting on our nightwear in separate areas of the room. I can’t help but recall our encounter at the waterfall almost seven months ago and restrain my laughter at the remembrance of how he’d acted very much the same during that situation too. My love for him grows. With each embarrassed encounter we had, I found myself enjoying his reserved nature all the more.

I sit on the edge of the bed- quite a magnificent one if I had to admit. For the thick straw mattress was elevated off the floor and adorned with a large feather-filled blanket and many majestic looking pillows in various high-end cloths unlike any I’d ever rested upon- recollecting my thoughts on all the strange surprises this day had held. Married. I place my hands over my heart and shut my eyes to secure the happy tears from falling. Prayer after ceaseless prayer is lifted to the heavens that I could remain beside the man I loved in such a manner.

“Yojeong?” I open my eyes to see Ki-Ja kneeling before me with something in his hands. I eye the mysterious box for a moment before smiling gently at him. He returns my smile almost instantly. “I have a gift I’d like to give you before we retire.”

He extends the box in his hold over to me now. I take it in my trembling hands and fumble to lift the lid. When I do manage to do so after a few tries, my breath is taken away by the contents within it. There is a lovely necklace made of beautiful glass beads in a variety of purple tones and a lovely hair ornament with small purple flowers that matched the necklace perfectly. What lovely adornments. Never in my wildest dreams did I think that I would ever be the recipient of such things.

“Is it to your liking?” Ki-Ja tilts his head and gives me a curious look as I sit, tracing my shaking fingers over the surface of both items. I look at him, my smile wobbling, and give a hearty nod to reassure him of how pleasing these items were to receive. “Good. I am very glad to hear it. Although you are beautiful beyond words with no adornments, I simply thought it might delight you to have a few pieces of jewelry to wear upon yourself or in your lovely locks if you ever felt inclined to.”

My smile grows. Beautiful. He thought I, plain and palsied as I was, was beautiful.

“I think it is best if we attempt to get a little rest tonight.” He takes the box out of my hands, shutting the lid in my stead, and places it down on a small wooden table nearby. “Shall I brush your hair and tell you a few more tales of my brothers shortly to be in our midst?”

And so on our wedding night, my husband sits and brushes out my hair as he always had in the evenings telling me story after story about the other dragon born of this generation. At times I laugh. Other times, I grow quiet from reverie or contemplation. While Ki-Ja always belittled his abilities to weave tales, I always found myself enjoying them. This night was no different.

Exhausted from an emotional day spent out and about, we both lay beneath the covers cradled in each other’s arms. I rest my head against the inside of Ki-Ja’s shoulder, pleased immensely by my ability to drink him in to my contentment. He stares up at the ceiling, smiling gently, though he does lower his gaze from time to time to me. His nose crinkles in delight as our gazes meet, and happily, he either presses a kiss to my forehead or smooths his human arm over my body in a tenderly consoling sort of gesture.

“K-Ki-Ja?” My whispered stammer sounds so silly in the silence.

He lowers his eyes back to me and gives me his undivided attention. “Yes, Yojeong?”

“I…” I swallow hard, mildly frustrated that my fear of uttering this one phrase was impeded all the more by my stutter. “I l-l-love y-you.”

His gaze widens, then softens almost immediately. “I love you too, Yojeong.” He murmurs with such emotion I cannot doubt even a fraction that it is true. “And such a thing will remain unchanged for as long as I have life.”

My heart pounds with some force. But it does not race. No, if anything it floats like a bird in flight. Whole. Honestly and truly, in those moments, I could want for nothing- not even the reversal of my handicaps.

“Try and get some rest, hm?” Ki-Ja snuggles me closer and kisses my head for the dozenth time this evening. “There is still time until morning.”

I hum happily and shut my eyes. Safe in my true love’s arms, I fall asleep. And while my dreams are sweet, my soul aches for nothing more than to awaken at dawn to be with Ki-Ja yet again.


	10. Brothers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i know that it's been quite a while since I've updated, but I hope everyone has been well. Please enjoy this very long overdue chapter!

The first person I see when I do awaken is not Ki-Ja, however, but Hae-Ran.

“Good morning, sister.” She says sweetly as she sits perched on the edge of our bed, smiling in amusement as I undoubtedly looked as confused as I felt. “There’s no need for alarm. Ki-Ja sent me here to ready you in his stead. The other dragon warriors arrived not long ago.” She nods when I coo in disbelief. They had finally arrived? “Yes. They are here with a few men-at-arms. Your husband rushed to meet them but felt it would be unfair to hasten you alongside him. He wishes for me to aid you in readying yourself. When you feel you are willing to join them, I will take you down to where they are.”

I sit in avid anticipation as Hae-Ran dresses me and tames my obnoxious mane of hair all with patient efficiency. My mind is full of questions. What were these other dragon warriors like? What would they be expecting of me? Would Ki-Ja introduce me as his wife? How was the wife of the White Dragon warrior even expected to act? Of course respectfully, and with decorum, but were there slight nuances I was supposed to be aware of? Anything Ki-Ja was requiring of me that I might not know to expect myself?

“There, there.” Hae-Rae coos as my tremors undeniably quicken due to my anxious over-analysis of everything. “Don’t fret. I have no doubt that all of these men will adore you from the moment you enter the room. For are they all not the cherished brothers of your husband? Do you not think that they will welcome you with open arms and warm smiles for ensuring the happiness of their beloved brother in ways only marriage can?”

I see the images as easily as she offers them. Smiling, I dip my chin and fidget slightly. Yes. I supposed that our mutual adoration for Ki-Ja would make us all fast friends.

Once I am dressed in a beautiful two-toned gown of a deep cobalt blue and underlying layer of a more seafoam hue, Hae-Ran has me turn to examine myself in the small mirror she now holds in her hands. For a moment, I am shocked by the woman staring back at me that I do not recognize it is my own reflection. I had never thought of myself as beautiful or flattering in form, but gods, I could not deny that those had been my first thoughts upon seeing myself.

Gesturing a little wildly to Hae-Ran, I relent that there was only one small change I wished to make to her pristine work primping me for my first day as Ki-Ja’s wife. The box of gifts my husband had given to me lays where it had been the night before. She opens it when I mime that I wished to wear the necklace inside of it and places that lovely beaded strand of jewelry upon my neck. I lift my shaking fingers to where it lay just adjacent to my heart and smile sweetly as the significance of it lingers. Evermore, I was Ki-Ja’s one and only true love.

We walk arm in arm down to the bottom level of the hall where a growing volume of rising and falling voices fill the air. Hae-Ran murmurs soothing statements in my ear, reminding me that all will be well. I am not so much afraid. Just a little nervous. Though I know that the moment I am at Ki-Ja’s side nothing more will plague me.

My sister- gods, how I adored calling Hae-Ran this and being called this in turn. For she truly was like family to me even more so now that she had been in the years we’d been in each other’s company- knocks politely at the shut door of the spacious parlor we used in the warmer months to take in meals. The volume from the other side diminishes greatly, and after a few moments of waiting, the door is opened slightly to reveal my bright-eyed husband.

“Ah, Hae-Ran. Yojeong. Good morning.” He opens the door completely now so that he can gather my hands in his and press a kiss between my brows. “I see that you are up and dressed. Please forgive me for leaving our marriage bed without waking you. The energies of my brothers approaching awoke me with some clarity, and I felt terrible asking for you to rise and ready yourself in a hastened manner when you slept so peacefully.”

I smile and move forward to press a trembling kiss to his cheek. He smiles all the wider himself for my silent gesture of understanding and adoration. None of his actions had saddened or angered me in the slightest. He had acted in my betterment throughout it all. Those selfless actions reminded me of how great his love was for me.

“Come, stay and have your morning meal with us. I cannot allow another moment to pass where you are not introduced to my brothers and they you in turn.” Ki-Ja beckons me to follow him inside the parlor. “Will you enter in and be seen? For I would greatly wish for it to be so if you have no qualms.”

 “Would you like me to stay and assist you, Yojeong?” Hae-Ran puts in from behind me. “I can be of service to you if you wish me to be.”

I turn and shake my head at her. With the arrival of the dragon brethren, I am sure there was more than enough work for her and the other villagers to do. Keeping her here just to steady me or fuss over me like I was some pampered child seemed wrong.

“I’ll assist her, Hae-Ran. Do not worry yourself on the matter, for I am sure you have many tasks to complete today as it is.” Observant as always, Ki-Ja says what I am thinking as easily as if he had read my thoughts. “But once you are finished, please feel free to join us. For you are always a welcomed friend to have nearby.”

I nod very deeply and smile at her. Her cheeks tinge pink. She smiles herself a moment later.

“Thank you, Lord Ki-Ja. You are very courteous to say such things on my behalf.” Her eyes drift from my husband back to me. “I’ll see you later on then, sister.”

 Ki-Ja gives my hands a small squeeze and murmurs a beckoning statement for me to come inside. My eyes remain on him all the while, so please by this vibrant glow that seemed to enrobe him completely that I wished for noting other than to drink him in. Sweet, dear Ki-Ja. My wonderful husband. How long I lived for this day- this very day where it felt like his heart had finally and fully been returned to him.

I am soon the captive audience to many a gaze. There is a moment of quiet observation on my behalf, as well as the group of men watching me in turn. My smile grows as the details Ki-Ja had uttered about each and every one of them allows me to differentiate each man’s name and background. Jae-Ha, Zeno, Shin-ah, and even the one I assumed had to be Yoon is here. Oh gods. What a precious blessing to have them all here with us.

“Everyone,” Ki-Ja speaks loudly as the others begin to smirk or talk in hushed tones to one another. “I have someone I’d like for you all to meet. This is my wife, Yojeong. Yojeong,” He looks at me with this insatiable joy I wished for him to keep forever. “These are all my brothers- from right to left we have Zeno, Shin-ah, and Jae-Ha- as well as Yoon, whom I’ve told you about before. Though I am not sure if I did them all justice as I feared with my narrations.”

I shake my head slowly while smiling to reassure him he’d done a fine job describing each one without flaw.

The sound of exaggerated weeping draws both of our attentions to the low table all the men lounge around a half-second later.

“A goddess!” The one I assume to be Jae-Ha laments into the crook of his arm as the others all shake their heads in exasperation nearby. “Truly, you’ve wed a goddess incarnate, Ki-Ja! Oh, the depths of my despair. Will I ever find one so radiant to marry myself?”

Yoon snorts. “The only one stopping you is you. Though I can’t say I won’t be sorry for whoever that woman you marry might be.”

“Oh, it’s alright Jae-Ha!” Zeno waves a hand across the table at him while beaming a smile so innocent I could hardly believe that this was the man my husband had said lived to tell the tale of his thousand-year old lifespan. “Just because you’re the last of you three to find a wife doesn’t mean anything! We still love you all the same. Right, Shin-ah?”

The man with the loveliest golden eyes I’d ever seen nods with some enthusiasm but says nothing.

Ki-Ja and I soon settle ourselves at the table. My husband sits to my left and Yoon to my right. Everyone murmurs a hello or greeting to me now, and I sheepishly smile in thanks for it all, knowing it would be hard enough to get one response out, let alone four. Thankfully none of them seem offended by my nervous or silent manner. Knowing Ki-Ja, he had most likely informed them of my handicaps so they would not be surprised by my stutters and shakings.

Of which no one ever makes a comment edgewise about, especially when the latter of the two is poignantly on display. Ki-Ja does the job of cleaning up as I eat or feeding me when the tremors are too violent to attempt to hold anything in my hands. He nurses my tea to me by tipping the cup slowly through my lips and dabs at any accumulating dribbles or lose particles of food with a handkerchief all in his patiently tender way.

The men talk of the passed winter season and their experiences within the Sky Tribe. There’s much laughter. A little bit of quiet reflection too.

They all speak so fondly of Yona and her new babe. Even Shin-ah, who seemed the type to rarely speak, even offers a few words himself about the young boy now only a few months old. Ki-Ja soaks it all up like a sponge. For I knew he would have gladly remained behind to witness the child's birth more than words could have expressed.

A comment about seeing the village grounds is made by one of the men, and soon we are all off on a walk to take in the sights of our reclusive village. Ki-Ja fusses over me with as great anxiety as ever, as much to his brothers’ amusement as it could have been. He pouts and whines at them all as they tease and goad him for more tender tuts to be uttered, but when he sees me smiling or laughing from the whole exchange between them, his mild mortification fades until he too cannot help but smile in turn.

I walk with my hand held in his own as we lead the band of warriors through our secluded oasis. Yoon remarks on the first time he’d been to the village with Yona and Hak, fresh on their journeys at the time, and of his first impressions of Ki-Ja. The picture he paints of my husband is one I scarcely believe to be true. For with me, Ki-Ja had never been anything but patient and sweet. Though perhaps time and experience had allowed his true colors to shine much as they did now.

It is mortifying when the tremors in my legs become so taxing that I cannot manage another step. All the dragon borne rush to my aid as I sink quickly to the ground as does Yun. Ki-Ja just calmly relays that such a thing happened more often than not and that I had walked far enough on foot today. Then he turns his back to me and gestures that he will carry me for the lingering duration of our time outdoors. My cheeks burn hot with embarrassment as I meekly wrap my arms around my husband’s neck and allow him to hoist me up onto his back while the others all watched on.

“Truly a doting husband.” Jae-Ha winks at me as he keeps pace to our left. “You’ve wrapped him around your finger well, my lady. I hope he treats you as kindly when we are not present.”

I smooth my hands over Ki-Ja’s chest and smile sweetly at the other warrior. It would take me the span of many days to recount all the selfless acts of kindness this man had enacted on my behalf. From the first moment we had met he had been nothing but wonderful to me. And I was grateful to the heavens for every moment following that had brought us to where we were today.

The villagers all come out to meet the merry band of visitors in steady waves. Each of the warriors do not mind the doting in the slightest and take in the White Dragon village with genial warmth. Women swoon and comment loudly about a warm hearth and an even warmer bed to share this evening at Jae-Ha and Shin-Ah both, but both men refuse politely in their own manner. I cannot help but giggle at everyone’s curiosity and welcoming auras. This isolated community had changed for the better as of late. I could not help but think Grandmother was watching from her place in the heavens with a smile on her face.

 The warriors are soon called over by our own band of guards who anxiously anticipate their own chance to speak with our visitors. There is talk of a mock battle to rally everyone’s spirits and help keep our village men on their toes. There is some laughter among the others at the excitedly given invitation, which all three men agree to without qualm. Everyone’s voice grows with volume. I cannot help but smile. Such vibrant joy. We were all truly blessed indeed.

My body grows weary as we travel idly through the village’s newly planted fields. I supposed that the weight of such a meeting had drained me of my already dwindled reserve of strength even faster than usual. Still, I do not make a word. Ki-Ja had longed to see his brothers for so long. To cut this reunion between them short simply for my own reasons seemed unthinkable. I could hold on for a little while longer. When the strained seemed too much to bear, I’d quietly make a word to Ki-Ja and see if he could find a villager to escort me back to our room so I could rest while they all continued on.

“I’ll let you all have some time to settle yourselves in to your lodgings and see to anything else that is of pressing importance.” Ki-Ja says as if sensing my thoughts without me having said them aloud. “It is time I return Yeojong back to our hall and let her rest for a little while.”

“Of course.” Yun nods before allowing his blue eyes to fall on me. “I hope it’s not discourteous to ask my lady, but I’d like to do an examination of you and see if I have any information following to help your healer here manage your care.”

I smile politely and dip my head in agreement. While it seemed wrong to have the young man do such a thing, there really was no way to politely decline. And I was sure Ki-Ja would have argued in Yun’s case regardless. Nothing mattered more to him than my well-being.

“We greatly appreciate your help, Yun.” Ki-Ja says with genuine gratitude for the man offering his services when we both knew he had no need to feel obliged to do so. “Just let us know when you feel it is best for such a consultation.”

“It’ll have to wait until our guards return. One of them also acts as my assistant so I’d like to bounce some ideas off of him first if you don’t mind.”

“By all means.” Ki-Ja agrees without qualm. “Hopefully this young man’s day is fruitful. You said he had some family living in these parts?”

“Yes.” Yun’s look grows a little somber. “Korain was quite anxious to see if they still lived nearby. I hope you didn’t think him rude the way he galloped off like that. He hadn’t seen them in many years and he worried that they may have relocated in the time since he’s been away.”

I felt for this faceless man. I hoped his journey brought him clarity. For if I were in his shoes, I’d be unsettled too until that long-awaited reunion finally occurred. To this day, I supposed that a small part of me still longed to see Chun one more time. To thank him for all he had done for me as a child and to let him know that I still loved him despite all that had passed since his abrupt departure.

Such a feeling must have still been apparent on my face when Ki-Ja helps me into our bed upon our return to the White Dragon’s Hall. “There is some pain in your eyes, Yeojong.” He says while perching himself on the edge of the straw mattress to smooth a hand across my head. “And one that is not from your usual ailment. Won’t you tell me what it is that bothers you? I greatly hope it is not in part of any of my brothers and their arrival here today.”

I softly shake my head and make a sound of concern that he thought my discomfort was in any part due to them. “I c-c-could n-not help b-but w-w-w-wonder if I-I w-would ever s-s-s-see my b-b-brother again.”

“He left when you were younger, did he not?” Ki-Ja’s azure gaze is full of loving concern. “Did he give you any indication- any at all- of where he might have traveled to?”

I give a sad shake of my head. Chun had never given any indication at all of what was ever really on his mind. Quiet and seemingly content with the simple life we kept, no part of me had ever thought he’d ever leave.

“I see.” My husband’s quiet answer is full of obvious sadness. But when he looks at me, there is no trace of it. Only that kind smile I had fallen in love with a hundred times over graces his gentle features. “Then I will have to search everywhere until he is found.”

My eyes widen. “Y-you would d-d-do that f-for me?”

His smile grows. “I would do absolutely anything for you, Yojeong. So rest your weary head.” He dips down and presses a kiss to my forehead. “One day we will find your brother and you will have all the answers you desire.”


End file.
